


Vines of Love and Passion

by suchadearie



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, This story goes to dark places, a same sex relationship, and flower symbolism, and this isn't an easy ride, bc bisexual people exist, if that offends you then you have my condolences, it's sad, oh right there are tattoos, omg it has a child that behaves like one, there are mentions of non-con in the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-19
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-02-09 13:44:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 85,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1985130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suchadearie/pseuds/suchadearie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>More than a decade after leaving Storybrooke, Belle is forced to return, divorced and pennyless, with her daughter in tow, where she has to face her past and the man tied to that past through vines of love and passion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Belle stared at the man opposite her, clawing her hands into her skirt, sweating, and tried to hear her own thoughts over the thrumming of her blood drowning out everything else.

“Could you say that again?”, she choked out, and her throat was so dry that her voice sounded like sandpaper rasping over metal.

“I have to fire you.” Greg leant back in his imposing chair and thrummed his fingers on the gleaming surface of his desk.

“Fire me. Why?”

“Because, darling, it’s over, and you can’t expect me to employ you any longer.” He shoved a stack of papers over the desk towards her and placed a fountain pen on top of it. “Sign that, baby.”

“I… what?” She took up the pen, but she didn’t see a single letter on the papers in front of her. Greg indicated her the line he wanted her to sign on, and Belle blindly set her name on that line, and a second, and a third one. She was completely numb.

“Thank you for being so reasonable. I hope two weeks are enough time for you to find your own place?”

“My own place?”

“Well, you can’t expect me to just continue living with you now that we are divorced?”

Belle stared down at the stack of papers in front of her, and the meaning of his words sank only slowly in. “Divorced?”, she breathed out, and she felt small under his puzzled look.

“What did you think what this is? Didn’t you read it?”

“I… no… What about Ivy?” Her brain was like a useless, gelatinous mass swashing around in her head, and her thoughts were just a jumble.

“She’s your daughter. Of course she has to go with you. Also, I can’t be expected to pay for her, and I’m glad you see that exactly like me and don’t want me to pay aliments for her.”

Belle stared at him and waited for her alarm to go off to rip her out of this dream. But nothing happened, and Greg got to his feet with a smile and ushered her out of the chair and out of the door of his office, after shoving some of the papers into her hand. A few faces turned towards her, and she quickly looked down, at her feet, hiding behind the hair falling into her face while she left the building where she had worked until this morning. Apparently Greg was really thorough in getting rid of something when he had no more use for it. Belle had no idea how she managed to cross the parking lot and find her car – if it even still was her car – and for a while she just sat in the driver’s seat and stared out of the front window. It shouldn’t be such a shock. She had known about his affairs. She had known that their marriage never was a truly loving one. But she had always thought that… there was at least _something_. She had felt something. She had been grateful. Adored him for the kindness he showed in giving her a home. In caring for her daughter, even though she wasn’t his. She always wished they had had a child that was not only hers, but theirs, but it never happened. And now, after ten years, he had kicked her out, her and her daughter, and she had nowhere to go.

With shaking hands, she fumbled her phone out of her pocket and stared at her contacts. She didn’t want to call her father. But a second look at the papers in her clutch told her that she just had been screwed over. She didn’t have a penny, she had nowhere to go, and she had two weeks to find a place for Ivy and herself. Pressing her eyes shut, she dialed her father’s number and pressed the phone to her ear, waiting for him to pick up.

“Hey Sweetie Pie, how are you?” As always, her father sounded much too cheerful. That was never a good sign.

“Dad. I… Can we stay with you for a while? Ivy and I?”

Her father was quiet for a moment. Not surprisingly, considering that she hadn’t been in Storybrooke in ten years. Eleven, to be precise.

“Of course, darling. What’s wrong?”

“Greg just kicked me out. He fired and divorced me in a single meeting. I need a place to stay until I’ve found something new…”

Again, her father was silent. Belle took a shuddering breath and held it in, hoping to swallow the sobs that choked her. “Are you sure?”, Moe asked then, and Belle let out her breath again.

“No. But… I don’t know where else to go. I don’t really have friends here… they’re all Greg’s friends.” She didn’t want to go back to Storybrooke, not really. _He_ was there. _He_ owned the town. _He_ would cross her path sooner or later. And eleven years were probably not long enough for her to get over it. And too long for him to ever forgive her if he found out. But maybe, if she hid away at her father’s, she could avoid a confrontation with _him_. But then, nothing that happened in Storybrooke remained a secret to Mr. Gold for very long. And sooner or later, he would find out about her daughter.

Ivy wasn’t thrilled to leave her friends and her luxurious princess-bedroom behind, not to speak of Greg’s home cinema, or the pool, or her dancing classes. And when Belle pulled up in front of her father’s tiny house, wedged in between two other houses with just the same, sad fronts, her daughter gave her the most scathing look imaginable and didn’t say a word. Only after she had let her grandfather give her a very plopping and very wet kiss on the cheek, she opened her mouth again, and Belle instantly wished she had kept silent for just a little longer.

“Is this the chicken coop?”

Moe stared at his granddaughter with his chin sagging down, and Belle hurried to thrust Ivy’s pink suitcase into her daughter’s hand and another, turquoise one into her father’s.

“No, sweetie, this is where we’re going to live for a while now.”

“Can’t we just go back, and you make it up with Greg?”

Belle looked down at her feet, hiding behind a veil of her hair, and pressed her lips together. “Sadly, that’s not an option.”

“Oh god, you are so mean.” Ivy kicked the last of her suitcases, a purple one, before she stomped off to the house.

“Looks like she isn’t happy”, Moe said, and Belle picked up the purple suitcase along with her own, and sighed.

“No. She’s mad at me, and she has every right to be. Nothing prepared her for being ripped out of the life she knows, from her friends and the only man she ever knew as a kind of a father figure.” 

Moe patted her arm, a little awkwardly, and let out a hum that sounded like a sound a bear would make. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, sweetie.”

“I try…” Belle swallowed the tears stinging in her eyes, and started for the house. There was no use in standing around. And she didn’t want to stay out on the street, exposed to everyone’s eyes for too long, if she couldn’t help it.

“I looked up some apartments for you, sweetie”, her father said, after they had unloaded their luggage in the living room, and Belle knew that this was only reasonable. His house was too small to stay there forever. Still, it stung a little.

“Does Mr. Gold still own the town?”, she asked, and tried to sound as if she didn’t care for the answer. As if his name didn’t mean anything to her, and her heart didn’t beat faster when it tumbled over her lips, because _Mr. Gold_ sounded all wrong, stiff and odd like a pebble in her mouth.

“You bet he does. But don’t worry, I’m going to help you with the rent.”

Belle tried to smile, but her smile faltered and she looked quickly down again. She would need more than just help with the rent when she had to face him. _I’m not going to say his name_ , she told herself. _I’m not_.

She signed a lease for a small house in the outskirts of Storybrooke with an agent two weeks after their arrival, after two long weeks being crammed inside a house with her father, who was clearly overtaxed with his acid granddaughter, and Ivy, who clearly hated everything about Storybrooke, down to the pattern of the pavement. When her rent was due for the first time, she wired the money, but still there was a knock at her door in the afternoon, and every single bone in her body seemed to turn to stone. She knew that he introduced himself to new tenants. She felt it in her lungs and her stomach and her throat that it was _him_ , knocking at her door to introduce himself, and she closed her eyes and placed her trembling hand on the door handle before she plastered a smile onto her face and opened the door.

“Mrs. Gaston, I’m Mr. Gold, your landlord…” He trailed off, staring at her like an apparition, and Belle’s smile turned into a grimace.

“Hello, Rowen”, she said, and he dropped his cane and reached for the doorframe, pale as a ghost. Looked like he was just as little over it as she was.


	2. Chapter 2

It had been supposed to be a day like any other. Maybe a tad bit more pleasant, because he got the chance to scare a new tenant. It had not been supposed to turn into… this. This maelstrom of memories and feelings swallowing him when she opened the door and said his name, devouring him and spitting him out all twisted and turned upside down. He had not expected to find her behind that door. Had not expected to be confronted with someone who could pull out the ground from under his feet with a single smile, a single word from her lips, and for the longest moment, he believed to be falling into an abyss, or through a rabbit hole into another world.

“Belle… I… I wanted to introduce myself to Mrs. Gaston…” Later he would blame his shock for not making the connection immediately, but right then, his mind was notably absent, stunned by her presence. It had always been like that.

“That’s me”, she whispered, looking down, and he reached the bottom of that abyss with a crash that left him nauseous and dizzy. Of course she was married. What did he expect?

“Of course… I’m sorry…” He didn’t know what else to say, and he stared at the back of her head when she bent down and picked up his cane, wondering about the blackness welling up inside him like tar, caulking his lungs and taking the ability to breathe from him. He wasn’t supposed to feel like this. He wasn’t supposed to feel at all. “Welcome back, then, I guess.”

“Thank you.” Still she didn’t look at him, not even when she extended his cane towards him and he took it, taking care not to touch her.

“I suppose there is no use in me trying to scare you, is there?” He tried to sound light-hearted, and failed miserably. Belle’s eyes didn’t quite make it to his face, instead fixing themselves on the knot of his tie. Irritation started to itch between his shoulder blades, and he flexed his hands. She had never feared to meet his eyes. In fact, she had always been one of the few people to stand up to him. It was unsettling not to recognise her.

“There is no use in introducing yourself to me, no. I already know the important bits.”

He wondered, for a split second, if that really was the innuendo he believed it to be, but then she blushed furiously, and a curse slipped over her lips.

“Oh, damn it, I didn’t mean it like that… I know your policies, I meant. Assuming they haven’t changed.”

“They haven’t”, he said, and paused, hoping for her to meet his eyes already. “Nothing has changed.”

Now she looked up, and a shiver grazed his spine. Her eyes were still as blue, still as deep as a mountain lake. “Everything has changed.”

He didn’t know how to bridge the silence, the emptiness, so he just stared at her, fighting the sadness that threatened to overcome him when she looked down at his feet again. She hadn’t stomached to look at him for longer than the length of a heartbeat. Just when the silence became suffocating, a bang from inside the house cut through it, and Belle let go of the door and turned.

“What was that?”, she yelled into the house, and Gold pressed his eyes shut and took a deep breath as long as she wasn’t looking. Of course she didn’t live alone in that house. His mind supplied him with the details of the lease. Two persons. Mrs. Gaston and her daughter. No Mr. Gaston. He managed to appear completely calm when he opened his eyes again. Belle’s attention was still directed at the insides of the house. There was another bang, and then the voice of a child.

“I didn’t do anything!”

“You never do anything. Stop banging doors!” Belle turned back to him, her forehead crinkled in distress, and that helped him to get himself together.

“Well, Mrs. Gaston, it was lovely to meet you again, but I fear I have to leave you now. I have places to be…” His lip twitched, and he decided that that was enough of a smile.

“Of course. Lovely.” Belle still didn’t really look at him, and she didn’t try to hold him back. And why would she?

“My regards to Mr. Gaston”, he said in turning, hoping it would get her to react. And it did.

“There isn’t a Mr. Gaston, as you know full well.”

“And why should I know? Do you suggest I’ve been keeping tabs on you? All these years?”

“No, of course not. But I suppose you read the lease.”

His cheeks grew hot, and that, too, was just as it had always been. No one managed to bring him down like she did. “Indeed. Forgive me my lapse, then.” He wanted to leave then, he really did, but just in that moment he saw her daughter slip past the door, a twig-like thing with a shock of dark curls, and something about the shadow of the girl felt like a punch to the stomach. She was already so big, and that reminded him of the life Belle had had, away from him. For him, nothing had changed. For her, nothing was the same.

“What happened to Mr. Gaston?”, he asked, his voice nothing more than a low rasp in his fear to intrude. Belle sighed.

“He decided that he wasn’t happy with me as his Mrs. Gaston anymore and replaced me.” She sounded bitter, and Gold gritted his teeth and tried to breathe away the rage.

“Then he clearly wasn’t good enough for you”, he gnarled, and a sad smile flitted over her face.

“No. I was the problem.”

He wanted to shake her over those words, because as far as he was concerned, not a single man in this world, himself included, was good enough for her. Maybe it was a good thing she didn’t look at him. At least that way, she wouldn’t see his anger. “What happened to you, Belle? I thought you wanted to see the world. I thought you wanted to taste life to its fullest. Now you are back here, at the very place you wanted to leave behind forever, small and bitter, with nothing but a broken marriage and a child?”

“And who gave you the right to judge? Do you know anything about me, or my life, or my marriage? Do you think you can turn up on my doorstep and know everything about me after talking to me for ten minutes? Maybe I did see the world. Maybe I was happily married. It’s not your place to decide if I failed, or didn’t realize my dreams. Maybe I didn’t, maybe life gave me more than I could swallow, but who are you to judge?” She had stepped over the doorstep, had straightened, and somehow she seemed much bigger now, flashing with anger, so much more like the Belle he remembered, who had been ready to conquer the world, and left him to chase her dreams. This was the Belle that had drawn him in like a flame, and this Belle pulled him in now, forced him to step closer, as if the world was freezing and she was the only source of heat, the only one able to unfreeze the world again. She thrust her head back, glared at him when he closed the distance and bent his head, until he felt the heat she was radiating like a prickle on his skin, until he felt her panting breath graze his cheek, until it was almost like a touch on his lips.

“I missed you”, he murmured, and his gaze flitted from her blazing eyes and her flushed cheekbones down to her lips, trembling and covered with a wet sheen that awakened the thirst to kiss her. Just then, Belle averted her eyes once more, looked down and stepped back, and he realized that he wanted to kiss a memory. The woman facing him wasn’t the Belle he had known. Not the Belle he had loved. He stepped back, flexing his hands once again, and shook his head to get rid of the cobwebs fogging his mind. His eyes fell on the girl, standing just inside the door and watching him out of huge eyes. “Hi there”, he choked out, and Belle flinched, and turned, pale and shaking, as if her daughter had witnessed something despicable just now.

“Go inside”, Belle said, her voice almost breaking, and the girl tilted her head and raised her eyebrows.

“Why?”

“Because I say so.” Belle sounded close to a panic now, and Gold wondered what it was that stressed her so much.

“You are always so mean.” The girl kicked against the foot of the stairs and slinked off, and Belle watched her until she was out of sight before she turned back to him.

“Ivy, she’s… she’s still mad at me.” She said it as if she needed to apologize for her daughter, and Gold’s stomach tightened once again.

“How old is she?”, he asked, and Belle clenched her jaws before she answered.

“She’s ten.”

“So. You didn’t lose any time then.”

If possible, Belle paled even more, and he swallowed the urge to apologize. He didn’t want to be angry. He didn’t want to reproach her. Even though he _was_ furious. She had been so young, too young for him back then, and even though it still hurt like a fresh cut, he had accepted and understood her reasons for leaving him. But now, seeing that it hadn’t taken her very far, that she settled down with probably the next best idiot and got herself knocked up, his rage flared up again as if it had been yesterday. Because it meant that maybe, her reasons hadn’t been honest at all. Maybe it really had been him. Maybe she just hadn’t wanted _him_ anymore.

“How dare you”, Belle whispered, and she sounded choked, breathless, and too furious to speak. And then she just turned, stepped into the house, and started to close the door.

“Belle…” He had no idea what he wanted to say. He just wanted to keep her from leaving him standing on her porch like that.

“Don’t come back”, she said, and closed the door.

Gold let his ribcage expand with a deep breath, clenched his hands into fists and pressed his eyes shut for as long as that breath lasted, before he turned and walked to his car again, his steps heavy, as if his feet were rooted to the ground, like black mangroves stretching out finger-like roots to keep him at this wretched place. Only after he parked his car in front of his own house, he allowed himself to feel again, and he hit the heel of his hand against the steering wheel until all that was left of his rage was a shallow blackness between his ribs, and a vibrating pressure that pushed upwards from beneath his solar plexus into his throat.

If only she hadn’t come back. Maybe then he would have been able to go on pretending that everything was as it was supposed to be. Perfect.


	3. Chapter 3

Gold didn’t go near her again, no matter how hard it was to resist that urge to confront her again, to pose all those question he had posed himself over the past decade, again and again, without ever finding an answer to any of them. Had she been happy? Had it been everything she hoped for? Had it been worth it? No, he didn’t go near her to drill her with questions, but he couldn’t help to watch her from afar. She started working at the flower shop again, just like she did when their… fling started. He wondered if he should start ordering flowers again. Back then, that was how it all started. She came once a week to his house, replacing bouquets all over the place – bouquets he only ordered so she would come and replace them, while he followed her around his house and snarled nonsense at her, just to say anything at all – “Careful with your heels there, Miss French, I don’t want you to ruin my hardwood floors!” (After that, she slipped out of her shoes when she entered his house and tortured him with naked feet and painted toenails); “Careful with that vase, Miss French, it’s invaluable!” (She only raised a brow at that and smirked, and his throat tightened and he was inexplicably short of breath); “Those aren’t the lilies I ordered!” (To which she answered that she knew that and was only doing him a favor, since lilies reeked of death and decay, and his house was stuffy enough as it was); up until the day she brought him a bouquet of white jonquil, and he plucked one slender stem out of it and dared to trail the blossoms down her cheek, down to her trembling lips and down her throat to where her pulse was beating frantically.

“Do you know the meaning of jonquils?”, she asked him in a hoarse whisper, and her eyes didn’t leave his, until he thought to be drowning in those deep, blue ponds.

“Tell me.”

Instead of answering, she clasped his hand, plucked the flower from his grip to touch it to her lips, and then to his, stepping so close he didn’t dare to breathe, out of fear to break that moment. “It’s desire”, she breathed, just before the flower fell to the floor and she captured his lips in a kiss that left him dizzy and stunned.

He doubted that ordering flowers now would be a good idea. And even from afar, he could see that this Belle Gaston had nothing in common with little Miss Belle French, who had been brimming with life, eager to see the world and breathe it in, growing a galaxy in her chest, with veins pulsing inside her like the Milky Way. Instead, the world had devoured her, had her crumbling down, and she walked with her eyes cast down and every movement tired. As if her life was chewing at her bones until they all were shorter by inches, until they were thin and breakable and every movement bore the chance of making her shatter completely. It was painful to watch her and see how she had wilted and withered. She had gone out into the world to grow, and the world betrayed her, downed her and spit her out again, like the sea spit out clumps of loose seaweed after beating it down and braying it between waves and tides. The worst thing was that it didn’t even make him sad. No, it made him furious. At her. How could she let herself be beaten down like that?

But she paid her rent and never gave him a reason to complain, and if he wouldn’t have seen her strolling down Main Street from time to time, when she brought her daughter to the bus stop, or saw her delivering flowers to Granny’s Bed and Breakfast, he could have pretended that she wasn’t even back, that everything was just as uneventful as ever. Unchanged and numb. But he did see her, couldn’t help but look out for her wherever he went. When her daughter entered his shop one day, two months after they moved to Storybrooke, he credited it to the black humor of fate, which obviously didn’t want him to forget that Belle had a child, and a life, without him.

“Good day to you, Miss Gaston”, he said from behind the counter, and the little girl tilted her head and observed him out of dark eyes.

“You are the landlord”, Ivy said, and Gold forced a smile onto his lips and waggled his head.

“Guilty. So, how can I help you?”

“I’m looking for a present.” She strolled along his glass cases, and he had to keep himself from telling her to tie her shoelaces. Nothing irked him as much as open shoelaces. She could stumble, and fall, and it would be a mess.

“Does your mother know you’re here?”

The girl frowned, and didn’t look at him as she examined a shelf with hairpins and combs and clasps. Her eyes widened a little, and she flicked a gaze at him. “Oh, she knows I am in town to buy a gift.” Ivy wasn’t very good at lying, and his stomach churned. He didn’t say anything else then, pretending to go over columns of numbers in the ledger before him. But out of the corner of his eyes, he watched the girl, and tried to determine the features she had inherited from her mother, tried to set them apart from the features she had inherited from her father, the man Belle fell in love with so shortly after leaving him behind, so deeply that she had his child. From time to time, the girl looked at him, and looked quickly away again, slowly making her way back to the door.

“I didn’t find anything”, she chirped, after scanning the last glass case, and Gold narrowed his eyes and rounded the counter. Ivy laid her hand on the door knob and pulled, and the glass panes rattled when he used the end of his cane to shove the door shut again. The girl flinched, and paled, and looked at him out of huge, terrified eyes.

“Give it back”, he said, extending a hand, and Ivy dropped the wooden hairpin she had shoved up her sleeve into his open palm, shaking like a leaf.

“Are you going to evict us now?”, she asked, and despite the fear in her eyes, despite being white as chalk, she sounded almost… hopeful.

“Now why would I do that? I will call your mother and she will hopefully ground you for at least a month. Shoplifting isn’t a game, young lady.”

The girl somehow deflated, and her eyes filled with tears. “But she will ground me for a year. I know it.”

“Then why steal at all?”

She pouted, and she had so much similarity with her mother then that it knocked the breath out of him. But she crossed her arms and stubbornly refused to answer. That, too, was just like her mother. Gold pointed the hairpin to the curtain that separated the back from the salesroom of his shop, and he could see the fear grow in her eyes and swallow whatever bit of bravery she had had.  

“In there, young lady, and sit down, while I call your mother”, he growled, and Ivy tried to stifle a sob. He was still blocking her way out with his cane, and after staring at the door for a moment, she let her head sink and proceeded into the back room, where he pointed to a stool for her to sit down. Her eyes flew to the back door, but she didn’t run when she noticed his raised eyebrows. He didn’t take his eyes off the girl while he called the flower shop, where Belle had to be at that time of the day, and for a moment he was too shocked to say anything when she picked up. But her daughter was watching him, so he pulled himself together and gnarled into the phone. “I caught a little thief in my shop and I believe she belongs to you.”

Belle was quiet for a moment, and he could hear her breathe. “Please don’t do anything to her. I’m on my way.”

“What exactly do you suspect me of doing? I already had breakfast and lunch, thank you very much.” He had difficulties to shove the words past the black rage clogging his throat. Did she really expect him to _hurt_ her daughter? What on earth gave her that ridiculous idea? After hanging up, he had to turn away from the little girl on the stool because he feared the urge to smash something was only too visible on his face, and he clenched his jaws to swallow the curses burning on his tongue. He counted to ten before he turned back again.

“So, why did you steal that hair pin?”

Ivy chewed on her bottom lip and refused to look at him. “I just want to go home again.”

“Your mother will pick you up in a minute to take you home.”

Now she looked up, and in the depth of her eyes flared a rage he was only too familiar with. “No. Home to Greg and to my friends and my old school. I don’t like Storybrooke. But mom screwed up and now Greg doesn’t like us anymore.” She spilled a tear, and it left a wet trail on her skin when it rolled down her cheek. Gold pulled out a second stool from under his working table and sat down opposite her, leaning forward to keep her eyes fixated on him.

“Greg is your father?”

“He’s my dad. The only one I ever had.”

He frowned and still tried to decipher the meaning of that sentence when the bell on the front door tingled and the clacking of heels told him that someone crossed the sales room with quick steps. The curtain was ripped aside and Belle rushed in, throwing herself between her daughter and him as if she had to keep him from biting the head off the girl.

“What do you think you’re doing?”, she said, with her voice shrill, and she stared down at him with flashing eyes. As if she had caught him in pulling out her daughter’s nails. He got to his feet, and she flinched over the abruptness of his movement. But she didn’t back away when he closed the distance to tower over her.

“Shouldn’t you direct that question at the little pilferer?” He could see the girl shrink behind Belle’s back, as if she could hide in her mother’s shadow, but his attention was drawn back to Belle when she lifted her chin and clenched her jaws.

“Right”, she gnarled, and turned. “What did you take?”

“Only a hairpin.”

Gold watched the exchange, fascinated by the utter lack of guilt the girl displayed. Instead, she seemed to be angry at being caught. He had seldom seen so much rage bottled up in such a tiny human being. She reminded him of…

“Oh hell, no.” He had not been aware of the curse slipping over his lips, but when both, mother and daughter, flinched, and turned to look at him, he realized that he had spoken out loud. Belle’s eyes widened.

“Ivy, go to the flower shop and wait for me there. You are grounded.” Belle didn’t take her eyes off him, and he fixed himself to that gaze, to her eyes, the only thing that kept him from going into a rage fit.

“But…”

“Now. No discussion until I pick you up.”

Gold watched as Ivy slinked off, and he wondered how he had been so blind. She was a spitting image of himself at that age, and he had not seen it. Gritting his teeth, he managed to keep quiet until the bell tingled again and told him that the girl – _his daughter_ – had left the shop. Belle wanted to step back, wanted to turn and flee, but his hand shot out and he grabbed her, above the elbow, digging his fingers into her flesh, so deep he felt her bones under his grip.

“Please tell me she isn’t mine and you didn’t keep my daughter from me for ten years”, he hissed, and Belle paled, and licked her lips. “Tell me!”, he yelled, when she didn’t answer, and she winced, and wanted to back away.

“I… she…” Belle stuttered, panting, and he shook her.

“Did you, or did you not keep my child from me?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, and held her breath, and he almost didn’t hear her over the thrumming of his blood in his ears. “I did.”

He let go of her with a start, and she almost tumbled backwards, grabbing the edge of his working table for support.

“Why would you do that?”

“Rowen…”

“Why would you do that?”, he repeated, raising his voice, and Belle looked down, made herself small, backed away. “Look at me, and tell me why you would keep my child from me?”

“It wasn’t on purpose”, she whispered, and he used his cane to smash in the glass door of a cabinet.

“It wasn’t on purpose? So you just _forgot_? Oh hey there, I forgot to mention, you are the father of my child?” He took his cane down on the cabinet a second time, and Belle flinched.

“Please stop”, she whispered, and he tossed his cane away, grabbing the edge of the working table to keep himself upright. He stood there, panting, and he turned his face away when Belle stepped to him and placed her hand on his shoulder. “I’m really, really sorry. I… I didn’t want you to be disappointed in me, or feeling trapped, and then Greg proposed and somehow I just… missed the right time to tell you. And all of a sudden, it had been so long that I knew you would never forgive me if you found out…”

Gold straightened, and shook off her hand. “Well, at least you got that right. I will never forgive you. Now, please, leave, before I forget myself completely.”

Belle bit her lip, and lifted her hand, as if she wanted to touch him again, wanted to grab him again, but she didn’t. She let her hand fall down, and nodded. “Of course… Maybe we could talk about it when… when you are ready.”

“It’s too late for that, dearie. But trust me, we will talk.”

Her face twitched at his words, but she remained silent. When she turned, fixing her eyes on the floor, and left, his stomach roiled with a new wave of fury. Not only that she had kept his child from him for ten years and let some other man be a father to his daughter, no, she let that other man completely break her and pluck apart the spine of steel she once had. And, worst of all, she made him hate her for it. He sank down on the stool again, after pouring himself a swig of scotch with shaking hands, and downed it in one go.

_He was a father_.


	4. Chapter 4

Opposite to what her mother told her, Ivy did not go back to the flower shop. Mom’s car was parked in front of the pawn shop (a sign that she really had been in a hurry to get there), and Ivy was sure that it was the sensible thing to wait for mom and drive with her. She wasn’t sure what exactly had happened in there, but somehow she had gotten out of that situation with a lot less screaming on her mother’s part than she would have expected. Somehow, Mom was completely concentrated on their landlord. As if Ivy didn’t even exist. That was strange. After the door of the shop closed behind her, Ivy decided to round the building. There had been a window in the back door, and maybe she could overhear what the landlord told mom about her thievery. He was creepy, and Ivy had been more than a little afraid when he ordered her into the back of his shop. _Never go with strangers_ , her mother told her again and again, and Ivy had wondered if this was a situation where this warning applied. When she reached the back of the building, and glimpsed through the window pane in the door, a sound escaped her throat, and Ivy clapped her hands to her mouth, hoping that no one had heard her, because she had sounded like a mouse, or like her best friend’s ferret. Ferrets made funny noises, but they reeked, and Ivy didn’t want to think about the possibility of having any similarity to those creatures. Still, if she were a ferret, she would sneak into that shop and bite that man who had grabbed her mom and shook her like a doll. Ivy’s head was swirling, and her vision blurred, and her hands muffled another ferret sound when their landlord lifted his cane and smashed in one of his cabinets. He yelled something, but she couldn’t make out the words, and she ducked away and pressed her back against the wall, shaking, and afraid to wet herself, because her muscles were numb and wobbly and prickling like that one time when she had gotten stung by a bee, only that it wasn’t just one place on the inner side of her arm, but her whole body that felt like that. She took a deep breath and held it in to stop the shaking before she glimpsed through the window once more, just in time to see her mother start for the curtain. Ivy nearly stumbled in her haste to run back around the pawn shop and reach the car before her mother came out. Mom frowned when she found Ivy beside the car, panting and shaking, but Ivy was stunned when she didn’t yell at her, but wrapped her arms around her and pressed her to her chest, until Ivy thought she would suffocate.

“Are you alright, darling?”, Mom asked, and Ivy managed a nod, although her head was squeezed in between her mother’s arms and she was nearly unable to move. When Mom let go of her, Ivy saw that she was shaking, and pale, but she didn’t dare to ask what had happened. Maybe their landlord wanted Mom to… Ivy couldn’t say exactly what. Could he demand for her to be sent away? Ivy wanted to go back home to her friends and Greg and her old room, but she didn’t want her mom to get into trouble. And she didn’t want to be sent away without her mom. All she wanted was for them to be happy again, and since they came to this half-dead town, Mom was just sad all the time. Ivy supposed that she missed Greg just as much as she did.

“I’m sorry, Mom”, she whispered, after they were both in the car and Ivy had fastened her seatbelt.

“I know, sweetie. I just don’t know what you were thinking.” Mom started the car, and Ivy stared down at her lap.

“I thought we would go back home when he would evict us…”

Mom didn’t look at her, and Ivy noticed that they weren’t heading for the flower shop. “Oh sweetie. Even if Row… Mr. Gold would evict us, we wouldn’t go back.”

Ivy sniffed and tried not to sound as if she was about to cry, even though she was. “I don’t like him. He’s a bad man.”

“Did he do something to you?” Mom sounded so sharp and alarmed that Ivy shrank on her seat and pulled her knees up, although Mom always told her not to do that while they were driving.

“He’s scary”, she said, and started to pick rubber out of the sole of her shoes. There already was a little hole, and if she poked into it with her finger, she could tickle herself, or pull at her socks.

“Ivy, what happened when he caught you?”

“He told me to give it back, and then he told me to go into the back and wait there while he called you.” Ivy didn’t mention how terrified she had been. If she thought of that moment when he had blocked the door with his cane, tears stung in her eyes and it became hard to breathe.

“Did he ask you questions?”

“Just… why I took the hairpin, and if Greg is my father.” Ivy wasn’t so sure anymore if that had really been what he wanted to know, because in her head, everything was upside down. “Are we going home?”

“Yeah. I think we both need a hot cocoa. With whipped cream.” Mom still didn’t look at her, but she didn’t sound angry anymore. Just sad.

“Are you not mad at me anymore?”

“Oh, I’m furious, and you _are_ grounded. But I also know that this was the first and the last time that something like this happened, right?”

Ivy hurried a nod. “I promise.”

She wasn’t sure why Mom was so kind to her when they got home, and really made hot cocoa instead of banning Ivy into her room, but she didn’t ask, because maybe her mother would remember then and sent her to her room after all.

“Did Greg call today?”, Ivy asked, after shucking off her shoes and kicking them under the bench beside the stairs in the hallway, and Mom sighed before she bent down to pick the shoes up and place them tidily on the shelf beside the bench. Everything was crammed and tiny in this house, and Ivy missed her huge home where it didn’t matter when she kicked her shoes off into the great wide somewhere.

“No, sweetie, he didn’t.” Before her mother could bend down to pick up the mail from inside the door, Ivy snatched it up and skimmed through the letters to see if maybe Greg had sent a letter, then. But he hadn’t, and Ivy dropped the mail onto the kitchen table and slumped down on a chair, staring into the empty air, while her mother placed a pot with milk on the stove and added cocoa.

“Maybe he forgot”, Ivy said, after a few minutes, and Mom turned around and smiled.

“I’m sure he forgot, now that he doesn’t have you anymore to remind him of things.”

“Can I call him later?”

Mom took the pot off the stove and poured cocoa into two mugs, and she didn’t answer until she placed a mug with a top of white cream in front of Ivy. “Yes, of course. I’m sure he’ll be happy to hear from you.”

Ivy sipped her cocoa, and Mom stared into the same emptiness she had stared before, her shoulders sagging and her eyes sad. “Let’s do vines!” Ivy hopped from her chair and fetched a ball pen out of a jar on the kitchen sideboard, but she had to poke and pull at Mom’s arm before she gave in with a sigh.

“Alright.” Mom took the ball pen and clasped Ivy’s wrist, and she tickled over her pulse, making her giggle. “So, what’s the meaning of ivy?”

“Fidelity. And friendship.” Ivy knew that by heart, and her mother smiled as she wrote _fidelity_ on Ivy’s inner wrist.

“Exactly.” Mom hummed as she drew tendrils and leaves around Ivy’s wrist, and then placed her own wrist besides Ivy’s and gave her the ball pen, so Ivy could draw tendrils and leaves around her mother’s wrist. “See, now we’re joined. My heart is yours, always and forever.”

Her mother sounded choked, and Ivy bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Mom, I didn’t want to make you sad.”

“I know, sweetie. Drink up, and then you bring me your Nintendo. Grounded means no video games.”

“Ugh, no… That’s so mean!” She pouted, and made her biggest eyes, because she knew that her mother had a weak spot there, but this time she remained hard.

“Don’t make me call Mr. Gold to sell him your Nintendo.”

The mention of their landlord scared Ivy, and she didn’t protest any longer. She didn’t want to meet him again if she couldn’t help it. Later, after lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, until she was sure she had found every single animal hiding in the pattern of the woodchip wallpaper, she went downstairs again to call Greg. He never called anymore since they moved out from home, and Ivy missed him terribly.

“Hi Greg, it’s me, Ivy”, she said, after Greg picked up, and he was silent for a moment.

“Hi, Ivy. Does your mother know you’re calling me?”

“Yeah, she knows. I miss you.”

He was silent again, and Ivy had to swallow down a clump that somehow formed at the back of her throat. She didn’t want to cry, because she didn’t want him to think that she was still a baby. “Ivy, you can’t call me all the time. Your mom and I are divorced now.”

“But you’re still my dad.” Now she did sound like a baby, or like a ferret again, and she snuffled and wiped the heel of her hand over her eyes. She wasn’t a baby anymore. She wouldn’t cry.

“Please, let me talk to your mother, alright, sweetie?” He sounded impatient, like he always had sounded when he didn’t find the remote control at once, or when Mom was late with dinner preparations.

“Yeah, of course…” She looked around, and spotted her mother in the kitchen. Mom looked a little stressed when she extended the phone towards her, and frowned when she pressed it to her ear. Ivy watched as her mother’s face changed. She got all red, and her eyes gleamed.

“Well, she misses you, and you never call her…”

Ivy shrank, until she was tiny, when Mom raised her voice, and bit her lip. Mom had never yelled at Greg when they were still together. They never fought before. Now Mom yelled at him because of Ivy, and surely that was because she had done something wrong. Maybe it had been because of her that they had to move out. Maybe Greg had found out that she had punched Marissa Lynn once after school, when she had called her and her friend Amber names. Ugly ferret-girls, but she had said it so it sounded like Fat-fret Girls.

“But you are the only dad she knows. You can’t expect her to just stop missing you just because you decided that we became an inconvenience…” Mom turned her back to Ivy, and left the kitchen through the back door, out onto the tiny yard. Ivy still heard her yell into the phone, and she went back into the living room, throwing herself onto the couch and pulling a pillow over her head. If Greg didn’t like her any more, then she had certainly been bad. Maybe Marissa Lynn had ratted her out.

Mom came back in, banging the door, and she slumped down on the couch besides Ivy, grabbing another pillow, and she pulled her knees up, like Ivy did so often, pressed her face into the pillow and screamed. It scared Ivy a little, and when her mother stopped screaming into the pillow and looked up, Ivy touched her arm, carefully, until she looked at her.

“I’m sorry, Mom. It was all my fault.”

Her mother paled, and tossed the pillow away before she grabbed Ivy and pulled her into a fierce hug. “No, sweetie, it’s not your fault. Sometimes, adults just decide that they are happier without each other, and Greg… needs space. He isn’t happy enough yet to remember how much you mean to him. He will come around.”

Ivy snuggled against her mother’s chest and pulled the neckline of her sweater a little down, until she could see the tendrils of the flower that meandered across her mother’s torso and ended in a blossom above her heart. At a first glance, her mother looked like any other Mom, but underneath, she was different from any other mother Ivy knew. Sometimes she liked that.

“But if he never remembers… Then I truly haven’t a dad anymore.”

Mom pulled Ivy’s head tighter against her chest, and Ivy felt her tremble. “If there was a chance to meet your real father, would you want to know him?”

“I don’t know… would he even like me?” Ivy knew that she wasn’t easy to like. Part of why she wanted to go back so badly was because she didn’t have any friends for the longest time, until she had Amber. She couldn’t imagine to ever find a friend again, and the other kids at the new school had lost interest in her already. On the first day, they had gathered around her and asked all kinds of questions, but then they weren’t interested in her anymore, and now she was mostly alone again.

“I’m sure of it. Who could not love you? That’s impossible.” Mom kissed her forehead, and Ivy sighed.

“You have to say that. You are my mom.”

“Oh, sweetheart. I love you no matter what. Even when you tell me how mean I am all the time.”

“That’s because you are.”

“I have to be. I’m your mom.”

Ivy circled the flowers above her mother’s heart and sniffled. “Tell me the meaning of that one”, she whispered, and although her mother had told her that a thousand times before, she smiled, and wrapped one of Ivy’s dark curls around a finger.

“It’s a love vine. There are several plants that are called love vine, but this one is a _clematis virginiana_. Clematis stand for ingenuity, and mental beauty, because they are very clever. When you give them a good support, they can grow very high, very fast, and they take hold in the smallest cracks. For me, it means that the more I love, the more love grows.”

“And the tree on your back?”

Usually her mother had a distant smile hovering in the crinkles around her eyes when she talked about the tree that grew on her back, its stem stretching from the small of her back along her spine, spreading its crown over her mother’s ribcage and between her shoulder blades. Today, she didn’t smile. She just looked sad. “It’s said to prevent those on a journey from getting lost. And it offers protection from malevolent beings.”

“Does it work?”

Now her mother did smile, and she pressed another kiss to the crown of Ivy’s head. “I certainly hope so. Now, up into your room. And if anyone asks, I did ground you for a month.”

Ivy struggled to her feet, and squeaked when her mother used the opportunity to tickle her sides. “And if no one asks?”

“Then you are still grounded. But on probation.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Mention of non-con

So far, this day had been one of the worst days since Belle had had to move out. First, Ivy detected her dark side, then Rowen detected his fatherhood, and then Greg proved to be a total asshat. She had not expected him to expel Ivy so completely from his life. And she still hoped he would change his mind. She knew he loved Ivy. He had always… well, he tried to be a passable father. To Ivy, it was all the same. She adored him. That evening, when Ivy finally was in bed (and had fallen asleep, after reading with a flashlight, thinking her mother wouldn’t notice), Belle took out the little box that held all that remained of her marriage, of the last ten years of her life. It wasn’t a lot. Pictures of their wedding day. She had been ready to burst then, sweating and with swollen ankles, and her smile had been rather tense on those pictures. Greg had donned his broadest smile while he had one arm around her shoulder and one around the best man’s waist. Two weeks later, Ivy was born, and Belle smiled at the pink hospital bracelet of plastic with her name tag. She slipped a hand inside her pajama pants and traced the scar of the c-section. She also had the drawing of her first tattoo in that box, a _passiflora_ , winding its way around the scar on her lower belly, just above the mound of her sex, one tendril ending in a blossom on her hip bone, the other one on the inside of her thigh, just below the juncture of her legs. It had taken several sessions until it had been finished, but the pain had been nothing compared to the pain she had to endure for months after that c-section. Belle wanted to put the box away, because all that was left inside it now were painful memories, but in the end, she took a deep breath, and downed the rest of her red wine, and took out the last few pictures. Two of them were ultrasounds, and Belle bit her lip when she felt the familiar twinge in her chest.

She could count the times Greg and she had had intercourse on one hand.

The first time had been when Ivy was two and a half. They had been on a business party of his father’s firm, and Greg had been named junior CEO. But before he announced this in front of the whole firm, his father used the opportunity to deride his son in private. Greg had been furious, and very drunk when they came home, and he had taken it out on her. Belle had pressed her face into her pillows to muffle her screams when he had pushed her down onto her stomach and spit into his hand to lubricate her rear passage before he pushed into her. It didn’t really help a lot, and not even imagining that it would be Rowen to sleep with her had helped her over it. She told him that she would make sure that his father found out every single detail about his life if he ever touched her without her permission again. He cried, ashamed of himself and really sorry. And he heeded her words.

The second time had been after the love of his life dumped him, because he wasn’t ready to come out to his father. Their whole marriage was meant to keep his father in the dark, to give Greg an alibi, since his father would cut him off and disinherit him if he ever found out that Greg preferred men. His best man had been his lover for almost twelve years. Ivy was five, and Belle felt incredibly sorry for Greg. She tried to comfort him, and they got wasted. Belle showed him how to touch her, and he challenged himself to make her come as many times as possible, before he penetrated her and spilled himself after only three deep thrusts. It was rather ironic that Belle got pregnant from that one time. When she lost the child, Greg, for the first time, stepped between her and his father, who called her a worthless waste of air and space (among other things), and defended her. He was just as sorry to lose this child as she was.

The third time was one year after she had lost the child, and she broke down, mourning their loss, and this time Greg comforted her. He wasn’t even a bad lover, but their physical attraction never went beyond the desire to offer solace. Their fourth and last time had been after his father’s funeral, and this time it had been to celebrate that the bane of Greg’s existence was finally gone. And maybe Greg would have decided to end this farce of a marriage much sooner, if she hadn’t conceived again. When she lost this child, too, it was much harder to get up again. Put on a smile. It had taken Greg another year before he finally decided to wipe her out of his life. She suspected he found a new love of his life. And if it wasn’t for Ivy, she wouldn’t even be mad, not even about the way he went about things. But he wanted to erase Ivy from his life, too, as if she never had existed, as if she hadn’t taken her first steps at his hands, as if “Geg” hadn’t been her first word, as if he hadn’t been the center of her universe for ten years. It broke Belle’s heart.

And now Rowen knew. And probably hated her. Rightfully so. The only thing that had kept her from going right back when she noticed that she had been pregnant were his words when he sent her away.

“You can’t really know if you love me. You are too young to decide that you want to spend the rest of your, or rather my life with me. You have seen nothing of the world. You have seen nothing of life. I don’t want you to grow unhappy and disappointed in a life with me because you didn’t do all the things you ever dreamed to do.”

“But what if my dream is to be with you, and have your kids, and grow old with you?” She had sounded so naïve. So young. Her heart had been open, and oh, how easily it bled.

“I don’t want you to have my kids now. I don’t want you to waste all that you are, all your potential, your possibilities. You have to taste life before settling for one flavor for the rest of your life.”

In the end, she had given in. She told herself that she would leave Storybrooke for a year, or three, and then go back, to him. But her first taste of life had been the taste of vomit in the morning. Not only that she failed to accomplish even the smallest of her dreams, she also was expecting his child. And a small part of her feared that he would want her to give her kid up. He had been so determinate when he said that he didn’t want her to have kids now. That it would ruin her life. She put it off to tell him, and when Greg asked for her help, offering his support in raising her child in exchange, it gave her an opportunity to delay returning as a failure. Little had she known that she would carry the failure like a scar on her heart. Ivy was born, and Belle still put off telling Rowen, and all of a sudden, Ivy was five and telling him became impossible. Somewhere along the way, her bravery got swallowed, and all that was left was the knowledge of being nothing but a huge screw up. A failure. A coward. She put the box away, curling up in her bed and waiting for the inevitable to happen.

It was two days later when the phone in the flower shop rang, and her father brought her a notice with a special order.

“Mr. Gold wants a bouquet of white chrysanthemum and daffodils delivered to his house. He asked specifically for you to deliver it.”

“Of course he did”, Belle growled, but she bound the bouquet and went to deliver it in her lunch break. She had put off that talk ten years. Meeting him now on his conditions, and his ground, wouldn’t make it any harder than it already was. Though, maybe she was mistaken, because when he opened the door for her, her stomach dropped, and didn’t return to her body. She tried to hide her face behind the bouquet when she went inside, past him and his finger pointing into the dining room, but he followed her, and pried the flowers out of her grip before Belle was ready to part with her flimsy shield, to put them in a vase that was already waiting on the table.

“Have a seat, please”, he said, and her lungs followed her stomach into the ground at his low growl. God, he was still angry, and the two days had done nothing to make him any less likely to snap. Not that she had expected that, anyway. She plumped down on a chair and clawed her empty hands into her coat, hoping it was enough to hide her trembling.

“So… are you going to try and take her from me?” It was the question that haunted her the most. She knew that, even though it was something rather unlikely to accomplish for most people, Rowen could get anything he wanted. Once, she had been naïve, and thought that was because he was skilled at talking with people. Now that she saw the world with sober eyes, and without rose-colored glasses, she knew that it was far more sinister. He was ruthless, and his talent wasn’t just in talking to people. It wasn’t just persuasion. He was a master of exploitation, and for once she wondered if their love affair really had been that – love. Maybe she had been nothing but a toy, and him pretending to want her to see the world and live her dreams had been nothing but a smooth way to get rid of the silly girl.

Rowen sat down opposite her, with measured movements, and folded his hands over the handle of his cane. “Hardly. I would be off to a bad start if I ripped my daughter from the only person she has left right now. But, of course, I want to get to know her.”

“Of course.” Belle looked down at her lap, and her mumbled words hardly carried across the table.

“From what she told me in the shop, I gather she knows that your ex-husband isn’t her real father?”

Belle licked her lips, and her ribcage expanded with the deep breath she sucked in, before she dared to look up and meet his eyes. “He is her real father, for all it’s worth. You are her biological father. But Greg will always be her father to her.”

Rowen straightened, clenching his jaw, and his knuckles turned white when his grip on his cane tightened. “So. You did not only keep my child from me. You ensured that she’ll always see someone else as her father.”

“She could grow to love you, too, but that needs time…” 

“All the more since you already took ten years from me.” He didn’t give her any space, didn’t take his eyes from her, and they were ice cold, seething with rage. Belle looked down again, but even so, she felt his gaze on her. She kneaded her knuckles, and the hem of her coat, and rubbed the heel of her hand against her thigh, but her mind remained blank. There was nothing she could say. She didn’t have any excuses.

“I think it shouldn’t be a requirement for her to love you. There isn’t a flip-switch for love. And this shouldn’t be about you, and what you get out of it.” She talked to the shiny surface of the table, knowing that this wasn’t what he wanted to hear. He slapped the table, and Belle flinched.

“Be so kind and look at me when we’re talking. I’m sick of you staring to the ground as if you hoped it would swallow you.”

Belle forced herself to look up, even though her skin crawled, and she wondered what it was that made him contort his face as if he was in pain.

“There. Good Girl.”

Belle took in a sharp breath, and squeezed her eyes shut. She hated these words. This conversation. “So, what do you want, if you don’t plan to take my child from me?”

“I wanted to suggest that we meet, and introduce ourselves. I think we didn’t have the best start.”

“So you want to tell her that you’re her father.”

“Maybe not right away? I don’t know, you have to know what’s best for her. Did you ever give a thought to a situation like this?”

Belle looked down, but she thrust her head back to force her eyes up as soon as she noticed. Rowen watched her with a frown, but at least he didn’t look as if he wanted to rip off her head any longer. “Of course I did. But none of the scenarios I played out in my head has any similarity to this one.”

“Well, at least we’re on even ground in that, then.” He got to his feet, and Belle shot up from her seat as well, anxious to leave. He didn’t round the table at once, instead arranging the flowers she had brought in their vase. “Tell me their meaning.”

“I suppose you looked it up.” She didn’t dare to move yet, and supposed it was safe now to look at the flowers instead of him.

“I did. Now, tell me their meaning.”

“White chrysanthemums stand for truth. Daffodils for a new beginning.”

“Exactly. Maybe we should start fresh, with the truth.” He moved, came around the table, and Belle took a step back, waited for him to proceed to the door. Still, she had to ask.

“Start what fresh?”

Rowen halted, between her and the door, blocking her way out of the dining room, and turned back to her. “Well, it looks as if we share a responsibility now. We may not like it, but we have a child together, and I’m not going to give that up again. So better get used to having me in your life.”

There was a prickle along her spine, and Belle raised her chin. “I will tell Ivy about you and let her decide if she wants to know you or not.” She started for the door again, wanted to slip past him, but Rowen blocked her way with his arm, putting his hand to the doorframe and forcing her to halt again.

“I will spend time with her, and get to know her. Don’t make the mistake to think you have a choice in that.”

“Why would I think you’d grant me a choice? You never did.” Somehow, her words did have an effect, and his arm fell away, making way for her to leave. But when she reached the entrance door, she paused once more, her hand on the door knob, and looked back at him. “So, was this our talk now? Or is there anything left you want to tell me?”

“There is.” He followed her, slowly, and in the colored twilight of his hallway, his eyes looked like glowing embers. Belle held her breath when he came to a halt much too close to her, and bent his head, his breath grazing the shell of her ear when he spoke. “I will find a suitable punishment for what you did, and I will make you beg for it. No one does something like this to me and gets away with it.”

Belle swallowed the lump in her throat and pressed her back to the door. She didn’t doubt his words for a second. “I will call you about a date”, she choked out, and slipped out of the door, almost running to her car in her haste to get away. Only when she was inside her car, the doors locked and the key in the ignition, she could breathe again, but she couldn’t start the car at once. Too strong was her trembling, and too blurred her vision. Back in there, she hadn’t faced Rowen. She had faced Mr. Gold, in all his ruthlessness. And no one crossed Mr. Gold.


	6. Chapter 6

Belle didn’t know how to breach the subject. Ivy was in an extremely bad mood that day, but she didn’t tell Belle what it was about. She refused to help with the dishes, or with dinner preparations, and just slumped down on the couch and stared at the TV, watching some noisy and annoying cartoon, until Belle wrenched the remote away and switched it off.

“Either you help me or you go to your room to read or something.”

Ivy refused to look at her and pretended not to have heard her. She never answered anything she regarded not worthy of her attention, and all too often, that included Belle.

“Ivy, please use your mouth. I can’t read your mind.”

“Why not? A good mother would know what’s wrong!”

“Then I’m just not a good mother. Is it about school?”

“Yes. And about this house and this town. Everything sucks, here. I wanna move back!” Ivy was close to tears now, and Belle sighed. They had this conversation at least twice a week.

“I know, sweetie. Why don’t you invite someone from school over tomorrow? Grace sounds nice. And I talked to her father. He sounds nice, too.”

“I miss Amber.”

Belle sighed again, and pushed Ivy’s legs off the couch so she could slump down beside her daughter. “I know, darling.”

“Why did we have to move here? Why couldn’t we stay in Los Angeles? Then I could visit Greg and Amber and wouldn’t be so alone all the time.”

“Oh baby… I just didn’t have the money.”

“Yeah, but you could have worked there, too.” Ivy glared at her, and Belle stared down at the remote in her hand. Her daughter was right, of course, and Belle wondered if her first, panicky reaction to run home really had been the sensible thing to do. If she hadn’t moved back here, Rowen would never have found out. And maybe one day, she would have forgotten him, too. No, it hadn’t been smart to come back to Storybrooke. She had spent the last ten years coming up with reasons why she couldn’t go back to Storybrooke, not even for Christmas or her father’s birthday. He always had to come to her. Belle lifted her eyes and looked at Ivy, who had crossed her arms and pouted, her dark eyes shimmering. No, it hadn’t been smart. But it had been what Belle wanted to do. Even though she had told herself she didn’t want to go back, she knew that she lied to herself. She had been out of reasons not to go back. She had to come back here, because there were still some things for her to resolve. She wasn’t finished with the past.

“I wanted to go home, sweetie. And my home never was in Los Angeles, or with Greg. My home has always been here.”

“But mine was not!” Now Ivy spilled a tear, and Belle pulled her into her arms, kissing her forehead and her unruly curls.

“I know. But your roots are here, too. And roots are important. Don’t you want to know where you come from?”

Ivy didn’t answer at once. Belle felt her tremble, and she squirmed in her arms. At the age of ten, Ivy didn’t bear hugs that long anymore. “I don’t like it here.”

“Yes, but your father’s from here, too.”

Ivy struggled out of her arms, and Belle averted her eyes. She had not wanted to blurt it out like that, but she had no idea how to tell something like this gently. Maybe the best thing was to just get it out into the open and wait for the storm that was sure to come to pass. “Does he still live here? Why didn’t you tell me? Who is he?”

Belle bit her lips, and got to her feet. She needed to move, needed to get rid of the tension. “He does…”

“Then why haven’t I met him?” Ivy paused, and paled, and Belle could see where her thoughts went before she even started her next sentence. “He doesn’t want to know me, right? He doesn’t want me.”

Belle slipped down onto the couch table opposite Ivy, and took her daughter’s hands. “No, baby, no. That’s not it. He didn’t know about you. He only just found out, and he… he wants to get to know you, really, he does. But he’s also hurt, because I didn’t tell him about you.”

“Mom!” Ivy yanked her hands away and sprang to her feet, her face flushed, and she was trembling.

“I’m sorry, darling. I was scared, you know, and then I had Greg…”

Ivy watched her out of big eyes, and Belle could see that she didn’t understand a word of what she was saying. Of course not. She was ten, and every reason had to sound incomprehensible to her. To her, the world was simple. She had no patience for adults and their flimsy reasoning. “You met him”, she said, as calm as possible, despite her heart beating in her throat. “It’s Rowen. Mr. Gold.”

For a moment, Ivy was silent, just stared at her, until the meaning of what Belle just said began to sink in. Her daughter pressed her lips together, but her whole face trembled, and her eyes were bright with tears. “No. You’re lying. He’s evil.”

And with that, she turned and fled, and Belle raked through her hair and let her face sink into her hands when she heard the door of Ivy’s room bang shut. Her limbs seemed to be filled with lead when she got to her feet to go into the kitchen and make Ivy and herself hot cocoa. It probably couldn’t ease the pain Ivy felt right now, but it couldn’t hurt either. She took both mugs up to Ivy’s room, and knocked with her toes.

“Baby, I have cocoa for you.”

“Go away!” Ivy sounded raw, and Belle swallowed her own tears.

“I just leave it here, then. Do you want me to call him? Do you want to talk to him?”

“No! Don’t call him!”

There was a thunk inside the room, and Belle heard how Ivy scrambled to the door, yanking it open with a look of sheer panic on her face. “Please don’t call him!”

“Sweetie, what’s wrong? Why are you so afraid of him? I thought he didn’t do anything when he caught you stealing.” Ivy was too panicked as that Belle would have brushed that aside. She had experienced herself just how scary Rowen could be when she brought him his flowers only hours before. And she didn’t put it past him to scare a kid to death if he caught it stealing in his shop. But when she had rushed in on them, after he called her, Ivy had looked fine. There hadn’t been this utter terror in her eyes. Ivy was panting and as green as if she was about to vomit, with angry red blotches on her cheeks.

“Please, Mom, don’t call him. I saw what he did to you.”

Belle had difficulties to make out Ivy’s words, because her daughter mumbled them without looking at her. But then she grew cold and breathless, and her head started spinning. “What do you mean, you saw what he did to me?” Her hands started to shake, and hot cocoa and whipped cream spilled over and ran over her hands. She hissed, and looked around for a place to put the mugs down.

“Please don’t be mad. I went around the pawn shop to look through the window, and I saw how he grabbed you, and broke the cabinet…”

“Oh god…” Belle was nauseous as she placed the mugs on the floor and pulled Ivy, who watched her out of huge eyes, into a fierce hug, not caring that she stained her clothes with cocoa and cream and would probably have to throw away that shirt, because chocolate was so hard to get out. “Oh god, oh god, oh god… sweetie, why didn’t you tell me? Oh god.” She swallowed a sob, but a choked sound escaped her throat as a shiver ran through her daughter. “I’m not mad, of course I’m not mad. Oh darling, I’m so sorry.”

“Mom… I can’t breathe…”

Belle let out a wet laugh, more a bark than anything else, and they both flinched. But she managed to let go of Ivy, and bent down to pick up the cocoa again, extending one mug to her daughter. “I’m so sorry you saw that, without any idea what was going on. You know, he… he recognized you, then, and he was furious that I hadn’t told him. He was so mad that he had to let some of it out… like you, when you bang doors, or kick the hamper. It wasn’t ok of him to act like that, but he would never hurt me. He just let his anger out on a cabinet.”

“But you always tell me not to break things when I’m angry. And I’m ten. He’s old, he should know that.”

“Of course, baby. But you have to believe me, he didn’t hurt me.”

“But what if he’s still angry at me for stealing?” Ivy’s voice broke, and Belle’s insides stung with unshed tears. Her baby was so scared, and Belle had to concentrate so she didn’t see the rage boiling inside her.  

“If he ever scares you, baby, you tell me, and I will kick his ass to Alaska and back.”

“Mom! You said ass!”

“I thought you are ten. You should know where the ass is…”

Ivy giggled, but it sounded wet and shaky. “I don’t have to meet him alone, do I?”

“Of course not, sweetie. I will be with you.”

“Promise?”

“Promise. So, shall I make a date?”

Ivy nodded. Belle smiled, and after they finished their cocoa, sitting on Ivy’s bed, she went back downstairs to call her father. She needed him to watch Ivy for a little while, while she herself slipped into her workout clothes to go on a run. She needed to exercise tension and rage out of her system, and running usually helped with that. This time, she ran until her lungs burned and she was damp with sweat, but the rage was still there. It had always helped to run when her father in law had picked on her again, used nasty insults to make her small, and Greg never said a word to support her. If she ran long enough, she produced enough endorphins to smile away the sting, as long as she never looked into their eyes, where she saw the truth of their words in her own reflection. Today, though, the rage clung too tightly to her heels, and she couldn’t shake it off, no matter how fast she ran. Rowen had scared her little girl, and no matter how unintentional it had been, she couldn’t rationalize her fury over it away. And her steps on the soft path through the woods outside Storybrooke echoed with the sound of his hand slapping the table when he told her to look at him, as if he wanted her to see her own reflection in his eyes, wanted her to see her failure, to see herself small and worthless and _cringeworthy_. She ran for an hour, but she was still raging inside, so she didn’t take the route home, but kept running, until she reached his pretentious, pink house. She barely made it up the porch, her head spinning, and she had to support herself with her hand against the doorframe, panting and gasping, before she pressed her thumb to the doorbell. She didn’t stop ringing until she heard him move inside, cursing and swearing, and she had her thumb still on the bell when he yanked the door open to decapitate whoever dared to pester him. But whatever it was that he had wanted to throw at her head, it never made it to his lips. Belle lifted her hand to interrupt his tirade before it even started, but she was still gasping and unable to string words together. Rowen stared at her, open-mouthed, and if Belle could have spared a breath, she would have laughed.

“What on earth happened to you?”, Rowen asked, and Belle waved her hand for him to shut up.

“You, Mr. Gold”, she panted, “You scared my daughter out of her wits with your lack of self control.” She had to pause, and double over, pressing her hands against her knees and gasping for breath, and Rowen used the opportunity to protest.

“I did no such thing.”

“Oh, shut up. She saw how you grabbed me in the pawn shop, and now she’s afraid you’ll do the same to her if you get mad.”

He didn’t answer that, and Belle supposed that he was just as shocked as she had been. But she wasn’t able to look up and test her theory. Not until his hand appeared in front of her face and he wanted to help her up, anyway. She slapped his hand away and straightened, resting her hands on the small of her back to stretch her ribcage, and turning away from him to take a few steps across his porch. “Don’t you dare to touch me, Mister. Who do you think you are, threatening me with some ominous punishment and trying to intimidate me? And anyways, what kind of punishment is this supposed to be that someone begs for?” She turned back to him again, and although her vision was slightly swimming, she saw the faint blush on his cheekbones.

“I’m not clear on the details yet”, he admitted, and Belle almost laughed. He didn’t look quite as intimidating now. Somehow smaller. Flustered. Maybe she was just taller now, fuming with rage as she was. She picked at her running jacket to give her skin some air circulation. She was steaming in the cold air, and she caught his eyes straying from her face down to her throat and what little skin was visible there.

“I told her”, she said, and that brought his eyes up again, narrowed, and he licked his lips.

“How did she react?”

“What do you think? She was thrilled, of course, that of all people the scary pawn broker who caught her stealing and grabbed her mom is supposed to be her father.”

“Well, that’s not entirely my fault now, is it? I think I’m allowed to get a little mad over learning that I have a ten year old child.” He sounded miffed and his voice could have cut through glass. And usually, it would have worked, would make her duck again, and make herself small, but not this time. Her limbs were shaking from her run, wobbly from exhaustion, but her heart was pounding with courage, and brimming with energy.

“Yes. But, as Ivy put it so aptly, you are old. You should have a better hold on your temper.”

“I’m not that old! Does she really think I’m old?”

Belle grabbed the banister leading around the porch and bent down to stretch her back and open her lungs, so she would stop panting already. “Ancient.”

“Well, I’m not dead yet.”

“No, you’re not.” Belle straightened again and leant against a post, and she fixed her eyes on the knot of his tie when he stepped closer. He didn’t wear a blazer, or a waistcoat, just a shirt, and he seemed almost naked without the rest of his armor.

“Does she want to meet me?”, he asked, and there was a rasp in his voice, as if he had to press the question past a lump in his throat and a pounding heart.

“Does tomorrow suit you? We could make dinner together. I think it would be best for you to come over, so she’s in a familiar setting, with a familiar routine. I want her to feel as safe as possible.”

“Yes, of course. That’s only reasonable, I guess.” He sounded breathless, as if _he_ had been running, and he leant to the banister at her side and looked down at his hands. She could see a tremor run through him, and she was sure that it wasn’t because of the cold.

“So, that’s settled then. I expect you at six.” She pushed herself off the post and started for the steps that led down the porch.

“Belle… Shall I drive you home?”

Belle paused, looking up at him, with his hands clenched around his cane and his eyes soft, and she hesitated for the beat of a heart. “No… There’s no need. I still need to get rid of some tension.”

“But you have to run to the other end of town… if it’s only for the tension, I know a trick or two to get rid of that…”

“I rather run to Canada and back before I let you do that.” Belle hopped down the stairs, and her legs nearly gave out under her. But she tried not to show it, and started for the street.

“I meant tea!”, Rowen called after her, but she just waved it off. Even though she doubted that she would make it home like that, hell would freeze over before she allowed him to drive her. Having him over for dinner the following day would be quite enough. 


	7. Chapter 7

Gold rang the bell and quickly rubbed his palm dry on his pants while he waited for the door to open. It didn’t really help, his skin was still damp and clammy, and he was hot and cold and shivering with panic. The door swung inwards, revealing Belle, all black in a turtleneck and a knit skirt, the very picture of a demure touch-me-not, and for a moment all he did was stare. Then he extended the bottle of wine he carried, and Belle sprang back to life, taking the wine and waving him inside.

“Er… hi. Ivy’s still upstairs, hiding… it will probably take her a moment…”

“Sure.” He waited for her to lead the way, trying not to look around too openly in the confined space of her tiny hallway. He winced when she called out Ivy’s name, and again when the only answer from upstairs was the banging of a door. Belle turned to him with a trembling smile, but she didn’t meet his eyes. He missed the fierceness she had displayed the day before, when she came gasping and panting to his door to ram him into the floor.

“Make yourself comfortable… You’re going to help me with cutting vegetables.” She looked at his suit with a frown, and Gold wondered with how many layers of clothing he had to part to appear comfortable. He shrugged out of his blazer, searching the hallway for a place where he could hang it, in the end settling for the banister of the stairs. Belle tilted her head, as if she expected him to take off more. As if he would take the chance to let her see how nervous he was by taking off his waistcoat and revealing the dark spots of sweat on the small of his back and elsewhere. When he didn’t undress any further, she shrugged, and went through to the kitchen. It was tiny, just as the rest of the house, and he wondered how he was going to survive dinner preparations in a space so small that every movement bore the chance of bumping into her or the furniture. This was going to be awkward.

“What’s for dinner?”, he asked, pausing in the door to the kitchen in a painfully obvious attempt to delay entering the tiny shoe-box of a kitchen.

“Tabouleh and grilled vegetables with ewe’s cheese.” She looked at him as if she waited for him to protest, but he clamped his mouth shut. At least for as long as it took her to fish for cutting boards and knives.

“And Ivy likes that?”

“She skips zucchini and egg plants, but the rest’s fine with her.”  

They stared at each other for what felt like minutes, and Gold just began to realize that she did in fact meet his eyes, when she looked down again and shifted on her feet. She wore knitted socks above her tights, and he wondered if she had knitted them herself.

“Maybe you should come in so you are able to help me… You could wash the vegetables.” Belle opened the fridge and started to extract peppers and zucchini and egg plants, placing them in the sink, and he jolted out of his paralyzed state with a start, taking the last step into the kitchen. Belle acted as if she wasn’t aware of his tenseness, but he still noticed how she watched him out of the corner of her eyes when he leant his cane against the counter and opened the tap to hold the vegetables under cold water, taking care that his sleeve cuffs stayed dry. He was just finished washing the second pepper when Belle stepped at his side, with a hum, and turned off the tap.

“I cannot watch you”, she said, clasping the wrist of his right hand and opening his cufflink. He could only watch her, paralyzed again, as she placed his cufflink in a little dish on the sill above the sink, and started to roll up his sleeve. He could hardly breathe, though she took care not to touch his skin, and he swayed towards her like a sunflower towards the sun. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

“What are you doing?”, he asked, his voice barely more than a scratch in his throat, and hoped she wouldn’t notice how much he was shaking.

“Opening these.” Belle was finished with the right sleeve, and grasped his left wrist, raising a brow, and completely focused on the task of undressing him. Kind of. He inhaled deeply, sucking in the warmth surrounding her, holding it in his chest as she rolled up the second sleeve, and this time she did touch his skin, her fingertips ghosting down the inside of his arm when she let go of him. “There. Much better.” She stepped back, and when he followed her with his eyes, he detected Ivy, half hidden behind the doorframe, watching him out of huge eyes. He had to clear his throat before he was able to speak.

“Hi there…”

Ivy didn’t answer, instead shrinking back into the hallway, and he wished he knew what to do.

“Hey baby, I need your help. You have to show Rowen how to wash vegetables.”

He turned his head to glare at Belle, who just raised her brow again. But her words did the trick, and Ivy sneaked into the kitchen, side-eyeing him, while he was still frozen in place.

“Don’t you know how to do that?”, Ivy asked, and before he could open his mouth to answer her, Belle chipped in.

“Nope. You have to show him how to cut it, too, because Rowen doesn’t know vegetables that don’t come out of cans.”

“Ew”, Ivy said, before he could protest and clarify that he indeed _did_ know vegetables that didn’t come in cans. “Don’t you know how to cook?” Ivy tilted her head, and Gold opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water. It was, again, Belle who answered.

“I don’t think he does, baby. We will have to show him, so I think it’s good for him when he’ll come over for dinner once a week, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, probably. How can it be that he doesn’t know how to cook? What does he eat?” Ivy squeezed past him to the sink and picked up the peppers, eying them as if she didn’t trust his washing skills.

“I think you have to ask him, but it’s probably cat food.”

Ivy’s eyes went wide, and she gaped at him. Gold had to loosen the knot of his tie and clear his throat once more. “It’s true. I live on kibble and milk.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Belle giggled, distracting him for as long as it took a shiver to trickle down his spine, and Ivy looked from him to her mother and back. “I want to see that”, she stated.

“Ivy!” Belle rolled her eyes, but Gold began to get a little more comfortable.

“I might be persuaded to show you. In exchange for something else, of course.”

Ivy narrowed her eyes, immediately wary, and Belle crossed her arms and glared at him. He waited, and Ivy began to fidget. At last, she couldn’t bear the tension any longer. “In exchange for what?”

“That I don’t know yet. But I will tell you when you and your mom come to my place to have dinner there.”

“Will I have to eat kibble, too?”, Ivy asked, at the same time that Belle said “Not going to happen.” Ivy and Gold both looked at her, and Gold noticed that they both tilted their head the same way.

“Why not?”, he asked.

“Because first, you have to learn how to cook. Once a week, in this kitchen.” She pulled a pot out of a cabinet, with far more clatter than necessary, and Ivy shrugged and started to cut peppers at the kitchen table.

“But this kitchen is tiny.”

“It’s this kitchen or no kitchen. Now watch Ivy, or you’ll never learn how it’s done.”

With a sigh, he did as he was told, cutting peppers and zucchini and egg plants and onions just like Ivy showed him, and he was amazed how deft she handled the knife. Belle seemed not to worry at all that the girl could cut herself, and they both worked hand in hand as if this was something they did every day. Only when Belle mixed couscous with cucumber and tomatoes and mint, and Ivy climbed onto a stool to pull plates out of a cupboard, Belle leaned closer to him and murmured something under her breath.

“I usually have to tie her up to get her to help me.”

He swallowed, and licked his lips, and tried to control the trembling of his hands that inevitably came with her closeness, and he didn’t know what to answer.

“Can you give me the glasses, Mr. Gold?”, Ivy asked, and he snapped back to attention. His daughter looked at him as if he just caught her stealing again.

“I…” Cold sweat was pooling at the small of his back again, and he sent a silent plea into Belle’s direction.

“Darling, I think it’s ok for you to call him Rowen. And you have to tell him where to find the glasses.”

Ivy pointed silently at a cupboard behind him, and he almost bumped into Belle when he turned around too fast for it to look casual. Belle grabbed his arm, his naked arm, her touch burning through his skin. As if she feared he would stumble if she didn’t support him.

“It will be alright, Rowen. Calm down.”

It was easier said than done, and he was still shaking when they sat down to eat. It was painfully silent, and the fork in his grip clattered against his plate. He was glad he didn’t lose half of the tabouleh on the way to his mouth, and for once he was grateful that Belle’s eyes seemed to be glued to her plate. The table was almost too small for all three of them, and they had placed the food on dishes on the counter to have enough room for their plates on the table. He searched for something to say in the emptiness of his skull, but all he came up with were painfully superficial questions that Ivy answered in mono-syllables.

“Do you like Storybrooke?”

“No.”

“So you still miss home?”

“Yes.”

He stared at his plate and wondered if he was too old for tears. He certainly felt like crying. “What do you miss the most?”

At least that she answered with more than one syllable. “Greg. And Amber. And dance classes.”

He cursed himself for his question, but now it was already too late. “Why don’t you go to dance class here? I believe there is a ballet school.”

Ivy bit her lip, just like Belle always did, and sighed. “I know. But we don’t have the money for dance classes anymore.”

“Well, I do.” It was out before he even thought about it, and Belle sucked in a hissing breath at his side, while Ivy’s head flew up and she watched him with new interest. “I could pay for your dance classes.”

“You would do that?” Ivy sounded actually excited now, and he felt a warm twinge beneath his ribcage.

“Sure.” He avoided to look at Belle, who was very silent and very dark at his side, like a crow watching the last breath of a dying sheep, so it could feast on the carrion.

“Ivy, help us with the dishes, will you?”, Belle asked, when they were finished eating, and Ivy crinkled her nose.

“Why can’t he do that?”

“Because you’re not gonna get dessert if you don’t help.”

That decided matters, and Ivy cleared away the dishes that Belle cleaned and he dried up. Still, something had shifted, though he couldn’t say exactly what it was. Belle didn’t look at him again, and she was painfully obvious in her attempts to avoid touching him in the confined space of the kitchen. His skin started to itch, and he was almost glad when Belle sent Ivy up to get ready for bed after they all had whipped cream with blackberries for dessert. As soon as Ivy was out of the kitchen, Belle turned towards him, and her eyes were blazing with rage.

“You can’t just barge in and try to buy your way into her heart.”

“What?”

“If you want to pay for her dance classes, it would have been nice to talk to me first.” She leant against the counter and glared at him, and Gold took a step back, until he collided with the sink in his back.

“I didn’t even know that she’d like to have dance classes… How could I have talked to you beforehand?”

“Well, you could have waited! I don’t want your money. I don’t need it.”

“Well, I didn't offer to pay for your dance classes, did I? Also, it would have been nice to let me actually talk to my daughter, instead of barging in and spinning some fancy tale of me living on cat food!”

Belle turned away and yanked open a cupboard, extracting two wine glasses. When she set them down, he feared she would break them, so forceful was she.

“Also, it would have been nice to ask me, before deciding for me to come over here once a week to have dinner in… in this shoe-box of a kitchen!”

Belle struggled with the cork of the wine bottle and didn’t turn around. “Well, I thought you want to get to know your daughter. You don’t need to come here on my account.”

Gold watched her as she started cursing and tossed the corkscrew into the sink, without having opened the bottle. He crossed the distance and took the bottle out of her hand, and Belle turned her head, refusing to look at him. “You ruined the cork”, he observed, leaning the tiniest bit closer, and Belle grabbed the kitchen counter, as if she needed something to hold her upright. He could see the frantic beat of her pulse just below her ear, above the turtleneck, and for a split second, he imagined to slip his hand around the back of her head, around her ponytail, and turn her face to him to kiss her.

“I’m ready for bed”, Ivy said from the door, and he quickly stepped away from Belle and turned around. Ivy watched him with her brows drawn together, as if she had caught him sharpening knives and getting ready to slaughter her mother. Belle pushed herself off the counter and slipped past him, placing her hand on Ivy’s shoulder when she reached her.

“Say goodnight to Rowen”, she said, and he tried to smile, despite the vortex of anger and heat and confusion swirling in his chest.

“Goodnight, Mr. Gold”, Ivy said, and his smile slipped.

“Goodnight, Ivy.”

Belle didn’t spare him a glance when she accompanied Ivy out of the kitchen and to her room, and Gold stared at the bottle in his hand, wondering if it even was worth it to open the damn thing. At last, he took a knife and poked the blunt end at the cork until it slipped down into the bottle, and the wine. He didn’t care. He poured himself a glass and had it already half emptied when Belle came back. The kitchen seemed much too warm, and he wished he could take off his waistcoat without embarrassing himself completely. But his shirt was probably dark with his cold sweat, so it would have to do to loosen the knot of his tie some more. He refused to look at Belle when she stepped at his side and poured herself some wine, too.

“It wasn’t quite as bad as I expected”, she said, gulping down wine as if it was lemonade, and he snorted.

“Oh, it wasn’t? Were we at the same dinner? Oh, and weren’t we just starting a fight?”

Belle leaned against the counter and observed him over the brim of her wineglass. She stared at the knot of his tie, as if her eyes were drawn to his throat, or afraid to stray upwards, while his were drawn to the tiny droplet of wine on her bottom lip, wondering if her lips still formed that perfect O when she moaned. It was frustrating that he was unable to hold on to his anger, unable to remember his wrath when she was so close. Ever since she had come to his house to yell at him, sweating and panting, his thoughts strayed from the path of fury onto much more dangerous fields.

“Is she still scared of me?”, he asked, prying his eyes from her lips just in time to see her gaze flit away from… _his lips_?

“Do you expect her to forget her distrust so easily? You’ll have to do more than just throw some money her way.”

“I just wanted to do something nice for her. It’s not as if I offered to buy her a horse.”

“Better not offer to buy her a horse.” Belle frowned at her wine, and Gold took up his cane. He needed to leave this tiny room, where every place he could choose to stand was entirely too close to Belle, too close and too hot and too dangerous.

“Allow me to pay for her dance classes or I will cut the rent by half, so you can pay them yourself.”

“Why that’s a real threat, Mr. Gold.” The way she said his name, deep and throaty, had him tingling deep inside his lower belly, and he wanted to step a little closer when she actually met his eyes. Wanted it so badly that he stepped back to resist that urge. He wouldn’t allow himself to forget that easily. She would have to pay, and she should be on edge about it, not wrapping him around her little finger as if those ten years had never passed and she was still the girl of hardly nineteen and he the fool of thirty-eight.

“I should be going”, he rasped, and Belle stared down into her wineglass.

“Yes. Yes you should.”

Neither of them moved. It seemed to take her forever to lift her eyes up again, and place her wineglass on the counter, seemed to take forever for her to push herself off the counter again and pick up his cufflinks from the little dish at the sink.

“Here, let me”, she mumbled, and he extended his hands and allowed her to roll down his sleeves again. And again, he could hardly breathe when she was so close, when she rolled his sleeves down slowly, and this time she did touch his skin, tickling down the hairy outside of his arm, and the softer inside, and the room started swirling around him when he brought his hand up so she could close the first cufflink. If he opened his palm and turned it just a little more, he would be able to cup her face, and trace her rosy bottom lip that she was biting so intently in concentration with the pad of his thumb. She let go of his first arm and dedicated the same attention to the second one, and he sucked in her scent with a deep breath that felt like the first breath after nearly drowning. She didn’t let go off his sleeve cuff at once after closing it, and it was even harder to resist the urge to touch her now. If she would turn her face just the tiniest bit, and he bent his head for the fraction of an inch…

“It would really mean a lot to Ivy if she could go to dance class again…”, Belle whispered against his wrist, and he swallowed and tried to ignore the growing tightness of his skin.

“It would mean a lot to me to give her this pleasure…”

Belle fixed her eyes on his wrist, and let her fingertips wander up from his sleeve cuff into his palm, lacing, entwining their fingers, and his skin tingled as he curled his hand around hers, lifting it to his lips and kissing the back of her hand. A tiny gasp escaped her, but she didn’t pull back. He yearned to turn her hand, to kiss her inner wrist, the soft spot above her pulse, but he knew that it would be a mistake. They were on uncharted territory. Matters would become indefinitely more complicated if they took this any further. Yet he didn’t find it in him to care. He had been mad at her the day before, furious, and by all that was right and fair, he still should be.

“Rowen…” His name was hardly more than a breath on her lips, and he closed his eyes to feel it echo through his bones.

“Just say the word, Belle, and I’ll go.” He felt her shiver in his grip, heard her sigh, the sweetest sound he could imagine, and his lips prickled, thirsting for her skin.

“I think… I think you should go…”

“Yes. Yes, you are right.” He stepped back, and for a moment it was as if she wanted to hold him back, as if she was not ready yet to let go of him. But then she pulled her hand back, and hugged herself. He hurried out of the kitchen, slipping into his blazer before his resolve could cave in. Belle followed him slower, and she was almost panting.

“Same day next week?”, she asked, and he nodded. She watched him walk to his car, and she still stood in the open door when he started the engine. He would have needed a moment to breathe away the tension, to wait for the hardness and tightness to dissipate, to wait for the shaking of his hands to subside, but she watched him, and he had to drive away. And so he was still sorely afflicted when he reached his dark and empty house. 


	8. Chapter 8

When Mom left her room after kissing her goodnight, Ivy slipped out of bed again and tiptoed to the stairs, to cower on the topmost step and listen down. She didn’t trust Mr. Gold, and when she had been down to tell Mom she was ready for bed, they had both looked as if they were fighting. It scared Ivy to see her mother in such peril. She was so small. Everything was small about her, her body, her face, her voice. What chance did she have against someone like Mr. Gold? But it remained quiet down in the kitchen, and all Ivy heard was a soft mumbling. Then Mr. Gold left, and Mom looked after him, and when she stood in the door, with the night creeping in dark and loud, she looked even smaller than usual. Ivy was afraid that the night would swallow her mother, in her black clothes, but Mom closed the door and leant against it for a moment, and the noise from outside stayed outside, scratching at the door in fruitless attempts to sneak in.

“Hey, baby. Couldn’t you sleep?” Mom had spotted her, and Ivy nodded. There was still that weird feeling in her stomach that she got on a roller coaster, just before it fell off its highest point, as if she was going to be sick, or as if her insides couldn’t follow that fall fast enough and remained behind, and she was empty, or filled with ants, and everything prickled and bit.

Mom came up the stairs and pulled her to her feet, and Ivy clung to her waist for a moment, pressing her face against her mother’s chest. “Can I sleep with you?”, she asked, and Mom patted her head and hummed.

“Yeah, of course.”

Ivy snuggled into her mother’s bed and waited until Mom was ready for bed, and she draped herself over her stomach, while her mother took up a book. But she didn’t start reading at once.

“He was nice, wasn’t he? He really tried to be nice.”

“I don’t know.” Ivy listened to her mother’s heartbeat, and let herself be lifted up by each intake of breath. “Is he really going to pay for my dance classes?”

“Yes, he is. You can start right this week. Do you know who’s the teacher?” Mom sounded cheerful, almost excited, as if she was asking Ivy if she wanted to go to Disney World.

“No. Do you?”

“U-huh. It’s Grace’s dad. Jefferson.”

“How do you know that?”

Mom giggled, and Ivy squirmed when her mother tickled her. Somehow, Mom was too giddy today. Maybe she also had that roller coaster feeling. “He told me when I talked with him the other day. He was asking how you like the new school and everything, and I told him that you miss dance classes.”

As it turned out, her mom was right. Ivy attended the same class as Grace, and while her mom sat with other moms at the side of the studio, Ivy struggled at Grace’s side through positions and battements and glissades, a little rusty after such long a pause. Grace was a year older and almost a head taller, and Ivy tried to stretch her spine and grow an inch or two, so she didn’t look like a baby beside the other girl. “Attention with your positions, you’re tipping forward”, Jefferson told her, and Ivy shrank again. When the class ended, the other mothers flocked around Jefferson like excited chickens, and Grace, who slipped back into her sneakers beside Ivy, scrunched up her nose and rolled her eyes. But she didn’t say anything. Ivy’s mom still sat on her chair, her nose in a book, as if she hadn’t even noticed that the class ended, and Ivy sighed. She was glad, deep down, that Mom never watched her close enough to see how many mistakes she made. Ivy loved dancing, but she always struggled with keeping her arms and legs sorted and always needed a split second longer to figure out left from right than the other kids.

“You did good”, Grace said, and Ivy looked from her mom to the other girl. “Did you like it?”

Ivy nodded, not bothering with tying her shoe laces. When she hopped to her feet and went over to her mom, she had to poke her to snap her to attention. “We can go, Mom.”

Mom closed her book and looked at Ivy as if she had to remember first who she was, as if she had to find her way back into this world, back from wherever she had been. “Already? Did you ask Grace if she wants to come over to play sometime?”

“Mom, I’m not in kindergarten anymore.”

“So what? You don’t play anymore?”

To Ivy’s utter horror, her mom got to her feet, stuffing her book into her bag, and started to where Grace was still sitting on the floor, her chin on her knees, and watching the flock of moms around her dad, flittering and tittering.

“Hi, Grace. I was wondering if you would want to show Ivy around town some time? She still only knows the school, and I don’t have time to do it, and I’m sure that the best places have changed since I was a kid here…”

Ivy tried to let Grace know that this wasn’t her idea, that she didn’t want to force Grace to babysit her, but the other girl seemed to grow as she looked up to Ivy’s mom, and she nodded.

“Cool. Do you want to have a hot cocoa with us? I have a little time left…”

“Uh…” Grace looked from Ivy to her dad, and back to Ivy’s mom, before she shrugged. “Sure.”

When Grace got up to ask her father for permission, Ivy turned to her mother, fighting the tears prickling in her eyes. “Now she’ll think I’m a baby. Don’t you know anything?”

But Grace was nice, and after they had cocoa at Granny’s, they strolled down Main Street, and Grace took her to the beach to show her a wooden castle while her mother went to the library to bring back the book she had been reading.

“Your mom is nice”, Grace said, when they sat side by side on the wooden bridge between two towers, and Ivy shrugged.

“Yeah. Sometimes. She was nicer when we were still living in LA. With my dad.”

Grace swung her legs back and forth for a while, staring down into the sand, and Ivy did the same. They swung their legs in sync, and after a while, they changed directions and swung them from side to side instead of back and forth. “I still miss my Mom”, Grace said. “At least you can still talk to your dad.”

“He isn’t my real dad. And since they split up, he doesn’t want to talk to us anymore.”

“Oh.” Grace bit her lip, and Ivy thought that she didn’t even look that much older anymore then.

“And now Mom wants me to get to know my real father, but I don’t like him. He’s creepy.”

“Does he live here?”

Ivy nodded. It didn’t feel right to tell anyone who her biological father was, even though no one had forbidden her to talk about it. But it felt like something improper, as if some foul reek clung to it, and talking about it would people make screw up their faces in disgust. Like the smell of ferrets. Maybe being the daughter of someone as terrible as Mr. Gold would make her reek, too. Ivy was glad when Grace didn’t ask further, and when Mom asked if they wanted to meet again, both girls nodded.

“Do you want to tell Rowen about your first dance class?”, Mom asked, after they parted with Grace, and walked to the car, and Ivy glanced back over her shoulder into the direction where the pawn shop was.

“No”, she said, and Mom didn’t ask again. Maybe she was relieved, too, that they didn’t have to go to Mr. Gold. He had been nice enough during their first dinner, but Ivy had sensed how much effort it cost him to talk calm, and she didn’t believe him for a second that he really ate cat food.

That weekend, Mom drove her out to Grace’s house outside Storybrooke, in the woods, and they spent all day together not only roaming the woods and playing in Grace’s playhouse in the garden, but also watching cartoons and drawing. Grace showed her how to fry bananas in a pan with sugar, and it was the best thing Ivy had eaten in a long time. Grace’s dad was nice, and at night, when she lay in her bed, Ivy missed Greg terribly. The following day, Sunday, Ivy had to go with her mom to the flower shop, where she sat in the back at a table and tried to draw flowers, while her mom bound bouquets. Back in LA, they had spent the weekends with Greg doing trips, sometimes spending time with friends on his yacht. “The weekend is for family and friends”, he used to say. Now her mother was always working, even on the weekends.

Mr. Gold came again the next Tuesday, and he brought her a present. It was a slim box, wrapped in plain brown paper and sealed with wax, with a sigil stamped into it. Ivy had never seen anything like it, and she wondered if she was allowed to open it.

“Go ahead”, he murmured, and Ivy ripped the paper open, because she had no idea how to open a wax seal. When she opened the box, she found the hairpin inside that she had attempted to take, and she looked at her mother, because she didn’t know what to do with it. Her mother bit her lip and looked from the wooden pin in Ivy’s hand to Mr. Gold, and there was a gleam in her eyes that Ivy knew from when her mother was mad at her.

“Thanks”, she mumbled, and put the box with the pin away. Mr. Gold took it up, and he smiled at her. His face got all crinkly when he smiled, and his sharp teeth flashed.

“Do you want me to show you how to wear it? You need a little practice, but with hair as thick as yours, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

Ivy looked at her mom, who still wore a frown on her face. “No. Mom can show me.”

“Oh. Of course.” The smile fell from his face, and he put the box with the pin down again. “So, how was your first dance class?”

“It was cool.” That was all Ivy said, and Mr. Gold forced another smile onto his face.

“Then I’m glad.”

“Today we make pizza”, her mother said, and Ivy had to wash and cut vegetables again, with help of Mr. Gold, while her mother rolled out the dough she had prepared earlier.

“Isn’t there something missing?”, Mr. Gold asked, when they had spread tomato sauce and vegetables on the dough (extra olives for Ivy and extra chili for Mom) and sprinkled everything with cheese, and he pulled at the knot of his tie as if he had difficulties breathing when they both stared at him.

“And what could that be?”, Mom asked, and Mr. Gold lifted a brow at her.

“Something, I don’t know, like meat? Bacon?”

“I’m a vegetarian. I don’t cook meat.”

Ivy tilted her head and watched as Mr. Gold fidgeted, and rubbed his fingertips, and the tiny kitchen seemed to be hit by a cold wind that made the temperature drop.

“Not even for Ivy?”, he asked, and her mother turned to shove the baking tray with the pizza into the oven, forceful, with a bang, and when she turned around again, there was a smile on her face that reminded Ivy of the dog with the thick skull that had once snarled at her on the beach.

“No. If she wants to eat it, she can do so, but I don’t buy or cook it.”

“I see.”

The skin on Ivy’s arms prickled when Mr. Gold turned around, to her, and tilted his head, and she shrank, and shrank, but still he could see her. “Do you want to go and have a hamburger with me some time?”, he asked, and Ivy looked quickly to her mom. _Please say no_ , she thought. _Please don’t make me, please don’t leave me alone_ , she begged, silently, and almost whimpered when her mother looked down at the dish towel in her hands, folded to protect her from the heat of the oven. _Please don’t look away_.

“I think it’s too soon for that, Rowen”, her mother said, and the breath she had captured in her chest left Ivy in a gush. Mr. Gold had not taken his eyes from her, and now he straightened and turned to look at Mom.

“Very well.” He didn’t say anything else, and they laid out the table in silence. The pizza needed forever to bake. He asked her what she had done over the weekend, and Ivy felt safe to talk about Grace and sugar fried bananas. His face turned red and he started to sweat when they finally had pizza, and Ivy suspected that Mom had served him one of her extra hot slices. But he ate until his plate was empty, and he didn’t comment on the food. He looked at his pocket watch when they all had finished eating, and Mom had cleared away the dishes.

“I’m sorry, but I must be going. I have another appointment.”

Ivy wasn’t sorry when he left without dessert, and her mother wasn’t either. But her movements were jerky when she did the dishes, and Ivy was afraid she would break a plate or something.

“It was horrible”, she told Grace the following morning in school. She still didn’t tell her new friend who her father was, but she told her that he had come over to eat with them. “He’s so… I don’t know. He’s mean. I don’t like him. I wish he was like your dad.”

Grace sighed. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we both had a real, cool family?”

“I would like that. Imagine if we had a family together… with your dad and my mom. That would be so cool.”

Grace giggled, and for a while they dreamed of being sisters, sharing a house, and doing as much fun stuff together as they could come up with. They would dance, and draw, and design outfits, and play in the woods and watch squirrels and build forts.

“Maybe we should try to bring your dad together with my mom”, Ivy said at last, and Grace tilted her head and nodded, and smiled. Now, all they needed was a plan.

 


	9. Chapter 9

He did not really have an appointment. It was just the notion of spending another hour or so in that tiny kitchen, his insides burning from chili and squirming under Ivy’s confused and hurt scrutiny, that drove him away. He suspected Belle to have shoveled all the chili onto one slice of pizza that she reserved solely for him, and after realizing what a giant fool he was for thinking Ivy might have taken the hair pin because she thought it pretty, he gladly ate his punishment down to the last crumb. At home, he drowned the flames with milk, and tea, sitting all by himself in his huge kitchen. He had no idea how to bridge that distance between him and his daughter. He had missed ten years of her life. He had no idea who she was. And before she knew him, before she knew he was her father, she had already seen the worst of him. What a brilliant start.

But Belle wasn’t really helping either. She watched him as if he could snap and bite off the head of the little girl any moment, and she probably had a baseball bat stuffed somewhere in that kitchen of hers, just in case.

It was Saturday when he saw her again, driving down Main Street, and it was not because he gazed out of the window and was completely lost in thought, thoughts about Belle and Ivy and what they might be doing at that time of the day, no, it wasn’t because of that that he recognized her car instantly, or made out her dark silhouette inside of it. It didn’t take him longer than that flash of recognition to decide for a walk, one that might take him two blocks down the road, and maybe to that flower shop where she was working herself into the ground. He was allowed to buy himself flowers for his home, and maybe it was the sensible thing not to have them delivered, not to force her again to come to him, but to face her on her territory, where she might feel safer… not that he wanted her to feel safe.

Belle looked up from arranging cut flowers in vases when he entered the shop, and a frown darkened her face, a little too pale and weary, as if the strain of being a single parent was slowly deteriorating the beauty she had once been. She looked tired and brittle.

“What do you want?”, she asked, and his insides lurched at her tone.

“I wanted to make you an offer. Where’s Ivy?”

Belle hesitated, and he couldn’t blame her. Her tone had been snappish, but his own voice wasn’t the friendliest around either. “She’s spending the day with Grace.”

“And you can’t take the day off to have some time to yourself?”

Maybe she hadn’t expected him to be concerned for her well being, because she knitted her brows even more, and tilted her head, as if his question was that hard to decipher. “Why do you even care?”

“Well, I do care. I want to help you. Let me support you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s quite simple: Ivy is my daughter, and it’s only fair when I pay child support.”

Belle stopped arranging flowers, and placed her hands flat on the work bench that was between them, as if she wanted to keep it there at all costs. “No.” Firm and resolute, but without meeting his eyes, she declined his offer, and Gold clenched his hands around his cane in an attempt to remain calm.

“What? Why not?”

“Because I know exactly that you don’t give something without expecting something in return. I don’t need your help. We’re getting along.”

Her assessment shocked him, not because it wasn’t true – because it was – but because for this once, he had made an offer without any ulterior motives. All he wanted was to help the woman he once loved and the daughter he hadn’t known to exist. “Belle, please, there is no harm in letting me help you. I don’t want anything in return. She’s my flesh and blood.”

“Yes, but I am not. And you made it clear when you sent me away that you didn’t want to have kids. So I’m not going to burden you with this one.” She rounded the table and walked past him, to the door, and she held it open, waiting for him to leave. His stomach churned and his throat was tight with his anger, but Belle didn’t meet his eyes and so saw nothing of it.

“And do you have any valid reasons for not wanting my help, other than your stupid pride?”

Her cheeks flushed at this, and she tensed. “Out”, was all she said, choked and hoarse, and he started for the door. But he halted when he passed her, close enough that she didn’t have a choice but to look at him when he bent his head, and her bottom lip trembled when he flashed his teeth in a snarl.

“You know that I could easily ruin you. Or your father, who owes me a fair share of money. Don’t make me force you to take my money.”

“And that’s exactly why I don’t want to take anything from you. Not enough that you humiliated Ivy by giving her that pin, now you’re threatening her family to get what you want. Do you even see how sick that is?”

“I didn’t ask for anything! Stop acting as if I offered you some sinister deal in exchange for me supporting my child.” He lost control over his voice, and it rasped painfully in his throat as he raised it, and Belle’s gleaming eyes fluttered shut for a second.

“You haven’t changed a bit”, she whispered, fixing her eyes on the knot of his tie once more, as if it gave her strength to just look at that patch of silk, and not at the man beneath it. “You’re still the same manipulating… ass you always were.”

“I, on the other hand, can’t recognize you anymore.”

“And isn’t that exactly what you wanted? For me to grow into my own person?”

“Yes, but… not like this.” He realized how pathetic he sounded. And how fatuous. She couldn’t change and still be the same person. But somehow he had expected her to become more… more like she had already been. Strong, resolute, self-assertive, and just a little bit less… naïve. He had wanted more of her, and instead she dwindled and broke and became a shadow of herself. He stepped back, and the disappointment was like acid on his tongue. “If you come to your senses, you know where to find me. My offer still stands.”

He didn’t wait for her to answer, because he knew she would only decline once more, but he winced when she banged the door shut behind him. It started to rain when he walked back to his shop, and by the time he closed off at noon, it came down in sheets, drenching the world with grey veils, and he was soaked just from crossing the short distance from his car to his porch. He shrugged out of his clothes in his bedroom, changing into dry pants and a shirt, passing on tie and waistcoat. He didn’t need to dress up when he would spend the rest of his day – all his days, probably – alone in his too big house and his too big bed. He sank down on the edge of that too big bed, staring down at his striped socks, and tried to remember the exact words of their parting. This morning, she said he had sent her away, but his memory told him that it had been her decision to go, and that he had only listed her all the reasons why it was a good idea to go see the world. Ultimately it had been her decision, he was sure of that. It was irritating, somehow, that he couldn’t remember the exact words spoken at their separation, but every last detail of their first time in this bed. It had been weeks after that first kiss, weeks of clandestine meetings and stolen kisses, because she didn’t want her father to find out that she was dating the ruthless Mr. Gold, that she let their landlord kiss her and touch her, let him whisper words to her that were anything but appropriate. She had been so innocent, so easily embarrassed, and he had truly felt like a creep, debauching a little girl. But she seemed to be the only one to see through the mask of the rogue business man, who came to wealth by being absolutely free of scruples and relentless in his dealings. She managed to wriggle through his armor and settle inside his heart, and since he was so ruthless in everything else, why should he develop a conscience now, when it came to his naïve little beauty, who offered herself to the beast, to be bitten and devoured?

She had trembled in his arms, in this very bed, when he slowly took her clothing from her, piece after piece, kissing every inch of skin he uncovered, until she sighed and moaned and squirmed against him. She blushed when he started to undress himself, but she had watched his every move, and his skin grew hot and tight under her gaze. Only when he reached his boxers, she averted her eyes, her cheeks aflame, and he had paused.

“Okay?”, he rasped, and she bit her lip and nodded, but she didn’t look at him until he slipped into bed again, still wearing his underwear, cupping her chin and tilting her face up. “I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do, sweetheart. If you want to wait, I’ll wait.”

“I haven’t lost my courage, Rowen. It’s just… I’ve never seen…” She had trailed off, and he had kissed the tip of her nose, and her temple. He drew a line of kisses down her neck, to her shoulder, nibbling along her collarbone and down to her breast, sucking in her skin just above the line of her bra, until she gasped, and he let go of her.

“May I?”, he asked, and she nodded, and arched her back to allow him to take off her bra. He licked and kissed her breasts, suckling and plucking her nipples in turn, until she moaned and pressed his head to her chest, sighing when he rubbed his cheek over her skin, leaving her chest reddened from his stubble. Her stomach trembled under his touches and kisses, and she sucked it in when he hooked his fingers in the waistband of her panties and pulled them down, after another glance at her face, silently asking for permission. His head swirled when he uncovered the dark nest of curls between her thighs, and he sucked in the scent of her dark red sex, swollen in anticipation. She blushed under his shameless gaze, squirmed, and tried to cover herself, but he captured her hands and laced his fingers with hers. “You’re beautiful”, he whispered, pressing his straining erection against her hip, and she sighed into his mouth, and whimpered when he traced the bow of her ribs and her side, rubbing circles with his thumb over her hip, and let his hand wander down her thigh, to her knee, and up again to cup her bottom and pull her tighter against him. Urging her onto her back, he slipped his hand between her legs and grazed her soft flesh with his fingertips, until she shivered, and buried her face at his shoulder.

“You have to tell me if you don’t like something, my precious”, he murmured, and she shivered when his breath grazed the shell of her ear. She was aflame in his arms, her skin flushed and hot, and helpless little sounds escaping her, and it never had been this hard to restrain himself. When he parted her folds and found her slick with wetness, he made a sound himself, the sensation of her silken heat engulfing his fingertips almost too much for him, almost overcharging his synapses, leaving him brimming with hunger and anticipation. He pulled back his hand in wonder, marveling over the wet sheen glistening on his fingers, and Belle made a choked sound when he brought his fingertips up to inhale her scent.

“Don’t… that’s…” She trailed off, looking away, and her face was even darker now in her embarrassment. He smiled, spreading her wetness on her nipple before he bent down to lick it off her, with a content hum, and ignoring her attempt at pulling back his head.

“Darling, you taste delicious. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

She squirmed, and pressed her lips together, and he bent down again to kiss her, until her lips softened again and she opened up to let him in, to let him explore her mouth and suck on her lip, while he returned his hand to her sex, slipping between her folds and along the swollen little nub of her clit. Belle gasped into his mouth, and her hips jerked, and he kept circling and rubbing her clit until she whined and panted and moved her hips frantically in her need to reach that peak. When he slipped a finger inside her, and a second one, gently and careful not to hurt her, and crooked them, she cried out, and bit his shoulder, sobbing and moving desperately, until her climax washed over her and she broke out in helpless spasms.

“Shhh, relax, my precious, I’m here, I’ve got you…” He held her until the spasms ebbed away, until she no longer whimpered and no longer bored her nails into his arms. He let his fingers slip out of her, brushing up over her still twitching body, to cup her face with his hand damp from her, tracing her lips with his thumb before he kissed her, to drink in the last of her sighs and moans. His own need burnt his skin from inside, had him pressing himself up to her and grinding against her hip, and her eyes went wide when he took her hand to guide her down to his shaft. “This is all yours”, he whispered, and she swallowed. But she didn’t pull back when he let go of her hand, and traced him through the fabric of his boxers, from the base of his heavy cock to the tip, peeking out of the waistband of his boxers, indecent and shameless in his hunger. Belle bit her lip and fixed her eyes on the hollow of his throat, and he tilted her face up to meet her eyes. “Look at me, sweetheart.”

She sucked in air, and licked her lip, and she was so hoarse he hardly could make out the words when she spoke. “May I… undress you?”, she asked, and he choked back a moan. But he couldn’t hold back the thrust of his hips against her hand.

“Do as you please with me”, he said, and helped her to shove down the last piece of clothing that remained between them. Her eyes went wide again as she looked at him, touching his tip hesitantly, and she paled a little.

“It’s so…” She trailed off, and he had to keep himself from startling her with a hug. She was so brave, so innocent.

“Ugly?”, he offered, and he saw the truth of it on her face, before she shook her head and protested.

“No! Well… a little… but I wanted to say, so big… how is that ever going to work?”

“Oh my sweet, precious darling. It’s not that big. And we’ll be really careful, and slow, alright?”

She nodded, so very trusting, and he guided her to lie on her back again, and started to kiss her again, to caress her trembling flank, her stomach, kissing her throat and breasts once more, until she sighed again, and her legs fell apart on their own accord when he trailed down to her damp sex again. She was on the pill, but he paused for a moment before he heaved himself between her legs to roll over a condom, and Belle watched him, biting her lip and hardly breathing. “Alright?”, he asked again, and she nodded, and grasped his shoulders as he positioned himself, aligning his tip with her entrance, and he bent down to kiss her as he rocked against her, slowly, carefully, maddeningly so, and pausing ever so often. Belle wrapped her legs around his hips, digging her heels into his buttocks, and he panted in his effort to go as slow as possible. She was tight, enclosing him like a vice, but he didn’t have to breach a resistance like he had imagined it. She winced once in his arms, and gasped, but she relaxed again when he murmured soothing words into her ear, and stroked her temple, her cheek, and kissed her deep to swallow her groan when he pushed into her that last bit of the way, until he was fully sheathed.

“Are you ok?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.” She smiled at him, and she didn’t cease to smile when he couldn’t hold back any longer and rocked his hips, thrusting with as much restraint as he could muster. Until she cupped his face, and locked eyes with him, and whispered: “Don’t hold back, Rowen. I’m waiting for you…”

He didn’t know what she meant, not exactly, but he couldn’t hold back any longer, and lifted himself on his underarms and knees to find the right angle, and thrust deep into her, erratically, until the heat coiling in his abdomen unfurled, flooded him white-hot, and he came with a hoarse cry. He just barely managed to roll to her side, taking her with him and draping her across his chest.

“Are you alright?”, he asked, as soon as he was able to form words again, and she nodded, a little shakily, but with a smile. He kissed her. And when he was able to move again, he got up, and fetched a washcloth and a bowl of warm water, and cleaned the blood from her thighs, massaging her with gentle hands, until she sighed, and granted him another watery smile. He had held her all night then. And if he had been able to, he would never let go of her.

That was until he realized that he was holding her back, that she was willing to let go of her dreams and her potential to be at his side. As it turned out, he had a conscience after all.

It hadn’t taken that much persuasion for her to leave him, though.

He rolled his toes one last time before getting to his feet and pushing into his slippers. There was no use in mourning the past. It was still raining when he settled downstairs on his couch, with tea and a newspaper he had no intention of reading. The rest of the day seemed to stretch endlessly before him, and he had no idea what to do with it. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt this empty. Aimless. He could work, but for once, he wasn’t in the mood to work. He could clean, but he had a cleaning lady for that, and he didn’t want to do the work he was paying her for. He could watch TV, but he wasn’t in the mood for that either.

“You’re such a waste”, he told himself, and as if to agree, thunder rolled outside, drowning out every other sound for a moment. It was because of this thunder that he didn’t recognize the knock at his door at once. Only when the knock was replaced by a very persistent ringing – as if someone pressed a thumb to his doorbell and decided not to let go until he opened – he realized that there was indeed someone at his door. And by the sound of it, it could only be one person.

“Are you going to form a habit with this?”, he asked, when he opened the door, and found Belle on his doorstep, wearing soaked workout clothes and running shoes, splattered with mud, her hair plastered to her skull, and the distinct displeasure of a drowned cat on her face.

“I am so mad at you that I can’t run it away, and that makes me even madder.”

“Were you running in this weather?”, he asked, just when another lightning stroke flashed across the sky, immediately followed by ear splitting thunder, and Belle flinched.

“I have to use the time I can scrape off my schedule. It’s not as if I could sit around and stare into space all day.”

His cheeks warmed slightly, because that was exactly what he had been doing, and for a moment he didn’t know what to say. There she was, on his porch, drenched to her bones, panting for air, and all he could think about was how to get her out of those clothes. “I could offer you a towel. Because you are mistaken if you think I let you run home in this weather.”

She straightened, and he could see the protest form in her eyes, ready to tumble over her lips, when another lightning stroke cut her off, and she deflated. “A towel would be nice”, she murmured, hardly audible over the thunder.

“Good girl”, he said, stepping aside, but he gasped in shock when her hand shot out and she punched his chest.

“Don’t ever call me that again. I’m not a girl. And I’m not a pet.”

Gold rubbed his chest where she had hit him, and had to admit that she was right. Apparently exercising helped her to regain her spark, and for a split second, he wondered if exercising between the sheets would have the same effect. “Sorry. Now take off those shoes, and don’t sit down until I get you that towel.”

“That doesn’t help me to be any less mad at you”, she growled, while he fetched her a towel from the guest bathroom downstairs, and he almost chuckled.

“When I imagined to peel you out of your clothes, I didn’t expect it to happen quite like this.” He extended the towel for her to take and pretended not to notice her glare. She toweled her hair, before she slipped out of her soaked jacket. The skin tight shirt she wore underneath wasn’t any less soaked, clinging even more to her skin than it would have in a dry state, and he was transfixed by her hardened nipples peeking through the dark fabric.

“Rowen.”

He pried his eyes away, forced himself to look up. Belle raised her brows. “Yes. I’m up here. And I am still mad. You can’t tell me to go away and _grow up_ and be my own person and call it _stupid pride_ afterwards. You can’t just impose on my life by threatening to ruin me if I don’t act the way you want me to act and quietly accept your will like a _good girl_. It’s my life. I don’t want you to judge me for it.”

“I’m not judging you.”

“Oh hell yes, you are. You look at me and all you see is how I changed, and how little you like that change, and what a failure I am, because I didn’t use all that potential you attested me after all. You look at me and wonder what happened to that girl you believed in, the girl you wanted to be a good girl and grow up into some kind of fairytale princess, not in a broke single parent of a child you never wanted!”

“That’s not true.”

Belle thrust her head back and started to pace his hallway, leaving a trail of mud behind, because she still wore her running shoes, and dripping water all over his hardwood floors.

“I just… I still don’t understand why you kept something like this from me”, he said, and Belle raked through her hair and turned away from him.

“I was afraid, Rowen. You made it plain and clear that you didn’t want me to have your kids. I was afraid you would press me into giving it up. You’ve always been very persuasive. I just… I was afraid. You believed in me, and I failed.”

“You’re not a failure.”

“Yes, I am.” She turned back, and her eyes were so raw and desperate that his heart clenched in his chest and his throat tightened. When she didn’t look away, and didn’t turn away again, he dared to step closer, dared to lift a hand to put his fingertips to her chin and tilt her face up.

“You have grown into your own person, Belle. You made a decision, and even though I don’t like that decision, it was yours, and you did exactly what I wanted you to do. You decided on your own, for yourself. I just never expected it to happen like this. I never expected to be faced with a ten year old girl, with a daughter that I don’t know, and that I don’t have the least idea how to interact with. And it doesn’t get easier with your interference.”

Belle turned her face away and stepped back. “My _interference_ is only to protect my daughter, who is afraid of the man who is presented to her as her father and expects her to accept him just like that.”

“Well, it’s not as if we could all go back to not knowing.”

“No. That we can’t.”

“Then where do we go from here, Belle? How do we deal with this situation?” He stepped closer again, taking her hand to lace his fingers with hers, and she let herself fall back against the banister of the staircase behind her, fixing her eyes on his throat.

“I don’t know. We just… have to give it time. Ivy needs time to process. She needs time to learn that she can trust you. You have to earn that. She doesn’t trust easily.”

He leant closer, bending his head until he could feel the cold from her skin, and was sure he would feel her pebbled nipples through his shirt if he only leant the tiniest bit closer. Belle shivered, and her gaze fluttered to their entwined hands when he brought them up between them, and pressed a kiss to her reddened knuckles.

“She’s so much like you”, she whispered, and clawed her free hand into his shirt to pull him closer, _closer_ , until he pinned her against the staircase in her back with his body, his shirt soaking up the wetness of her clothes, the prickling cold, and he swallowed the sob that broke over her lips with a kiss, pinning her hand, laced with his, above her head against the wooden balusters of the staircase.

“I missed you, Belle”, he whispered between the kisses he scattered down her throat, between the gentle bites he placed at the crook of her neck, and Belle whimpered, and pressed herself to him as if he was the only thing that kept her upright, the only thing keeping her from drowning. “I missed you every day and every night and I miss you even more now that you are back…”

“I missed you, too. There wasn’t a day I didn’t feel you under my skin, between my ribs and my bones…”

He had to kiss her to choke back his own sob then, and she buried her clammy hand in his hair and kept him in place, and sucked on his lip and met his tongue with hers until he believed to dissolve into a liquid state. “We have to get you out of those clothes, before you catch a cold”, he murmured, tugging at the hem of her shirt, but his words didn’t have the desired effect at all. Belle let go of his head and pushed him back, yanking free the hand he still had pinned above her head.

“No. We can’t do this. I don’t want to stress Ivy even more by tumbling head first back into a relationship with you. First the two of you have to get to know each other better.”

Gold let go of her completely and stepped back, all the heat he felt only moments before draining from his system. “And how do you suggest to achieve that? Because your family dinners aren’t working out that well, that much I can tell you.”

“I know that, there’s no need to snap at me. Maybe we should… go take a walk together or something. Spend some time outside. Or we could go camping. Do you still have that cabin in the woods?”

“Er…” Somehow Belle had thrown him under a train, and although the heat was gone, his thinking abilities weren’t fully back to normal yet.

“Then how about we spend a day there, for a start, and make barbeque?”

“Real barbeque?”

Belle rolled her eyes. “As long as you provide the meat, yes. I’ll find something to eat.”

He could only nod, and Belle shook her head at so much eloquence. “Alright. Pick us up at ten tomorrow.” Without waiting for his answer, she started for the door.

“Er… Belle… It’s still raining… you’ll get wet…”

She paused, one hand on the doorknob, and tilted her head. “I already am, Mr. Gold, but I can handle it.”

Faster than he could come up with a reply (or a question about what kind of wetness they were talking), she was out of the door, and it was much later, when he finally woke out of his frozen state, that he realized that she had left her jacket behind. And only when a shiver ran down his spine, he realized that his front was completely soaked through, and he went to change for the second time in one day.


	10. Chapter 10

Despite having to run home through the rain and the cold, Belle was still tense when she reached home. Her fingers were numb and her hands shaking, but her abdomen was filled with heat, and the run had not accomplished to keep away the images of Rowen pinning her against the stairs and kissing her, of him roaming her body with hungry touches, plump in his need to get beneath her clothes, to get them skin to skin. She saw him lifting her up while he kissed her until she was dizzy and breathless, saw him grab her legs to wrap them around him, and felt his fingertips dip into that disgraceful wetness between her legs, his skin slippery from her juices and his fingers so very skilled. She reached home soaked in more than one way, and she brought herself off three times when she took her shower, and still she was tense and trembling with a need she hadn’t felt this strong in a long time. She almost cursed herself for not giving in to temptation.

When she picked up Ivy, she had to grit her teeth, because the girls thought it to be funny to let their parents look for them all over Jefferson’s garden and the surrounding woods, without making a sound. It took them nearly half an hour to find Grace and Ivy (hiding out in a tree house Jefferson had built for his daughter), and Belle was too mad to stay for coffee. Ivy grimaced when she told her about the barbeque with Rowen the next day, and banged the door to her room shut after stomping up the stairs to leave her mother alone and unhappy. Belle allowed herself a glass of wine while she sat in the kitchen and contemplated to call her only friend back in LA. But that wouldn’t help her one bit. In the end, after having dinner with her cranky daughter, she curled up in bed and tried to numb the humming and buzzing under her skin by recalling every single talk that had led up to the separation from Rowen. Tried to remember why it was such a bad idea to just fall into his arms. But she ended up remembering the weekend they had spent in his cabin in secret, while her father thought her to be on a trip with a friend from school. She had been sick that week, and was still not fully recovered, but they had planned that weekend for too long to pass on it. It had to be then that she conceived, not knowing that some antibiotics interfered with the pill. They spent the weekend in the narrow bed inside the cabin, on the floor in front of the fireplace (on pillows and blankets, not a bear rug), at the shore of the small lake. The last time had been when they were about to leave again, and they consumed each other with desperate kisses, with teeth and claws. Rowen pinned her against a tree, and the rough bark scratched her skin, rubbed her raw while she clung to him and screamed his name, while he buried his teeth in the flesh of her shoulder to mark her and pounded hard and deep into her, leaving her bruised, marred, but more alive than ever. He was so gentle all of the time, always, apart from that one time, when he didn’t even bother with a condom, when he took her as if it was the last time. It was, and he had already known it. She hadn’t.

The week before, he had asked her how her college applications went. She had, for a split second, contemplated to lie to him. But her face was of glass, and he would see right through it.

“I didn’t send out applications. I want to stay here.” With him, but she didn’t say that. His face froze over, and he looked at her in shock.

“What exactly do you mean by that?”, he asked, and his voice sent a chill through her flesh, like an icicle stabbed through her stomach.

“I…” She couldn’t finish her sentence. All of a sudden, she felt foolish and too young.

“Of course you are going to college. You won’t stay here in the middle of nowhere where all there is for you are fishing boats and canneries.”

“And you…” He, who was all she needed, all she wanted. He, who shattered her hope without hardly a glance at her.

“I’m too old for you, precious. You will grow tired of me before you even know it.”

She kept all her misguided words of love to herself. He didn’t want them.

She waited for her period two weeks after their last weekend together, and blamed her sickness and the medication when it didn’t come. She imagined to have his children, to be his family. She didn’t need the world when she had him. He was her adventure. But she wasn’t his, and he didn’t want to have a family with her. He didn’t want her to waste her life on him. Because that was what he saw in himself: A waste.

“There is a world waiting for you, sweetheart. Don’t waste your youth on someone like me. Love… dissipates. This is nothing but a crush, an infatuation. It will fade away.”

It didn’t. It was still as fresh, as cruel as on the first day, when she had realized for the first time that she loved this man, with all his flaws, loved him madly, deeply. It wasn’t enough. “I will call you”, she said, when she came to say goodbye, her suitcase with the few necessities in her hand like a weight of bricks, dragging her to the bottom of that black sea he called a world.

“Don’t. It’d be better not to look back. That way, you won’t be tempted to come back.”

How weak, how easily corruptible he thought her to be.

She didn’t sleep that night, and she got up at six to prepare salads, marinated tofu and zucchini, and baked Muffins for dessert. Ivy stumbled out of bed at nine, bleary-eyed and not the least bit more enthusiastic than the day before. Belle packed two bottles of wine. The doorbell rang at 9.30, and Belle should have been suspicious when Ivy’s face lit up and she darted for the door.

“It’s Grace, and Jefferson. I invited them for breakfast”, Ivy chirped, when she came back into the kitchen, her friend in tow, and Jefferson greeted Belle with a quirk of his eyebrows and a grin.

“Ivy said that was your idea”, he said, and Belle glared at her daughter, who tried to look as innocent as humanly possible.

“Did she?” Maybe Belle would have known how to handle the situation if she had had a good night’s sleep. As it was, she had no idea how to get Jefferson out of the door.

“You had no idea, right?” Jefferson cocked his head, eyeing Grace and Ivy out of the corner of his eyes, and Belle sighed.

“Not the slightest. We’re about to leave for the day.”

“Can’t they come with us?”, Ivy asked, and Belle was still trying to figure out how to answer, and decline, when the doorbell rang again. Again Ivy darted for the door, and Belle followed her, after exchanging a helpless look with Jefferson. The tiny hallway was decidedly overfraught with people, and Belle was close to a panic. Ivy had already opened the door, and Belle reached her just in time to witness the sweetest smile to grace her daughter’s face in a long time. Rowen, on the doorstep, clearly had no idea what hit him.

“Hi, Rowen”, Ivy chirped, and Belle clenched her teeth. “Can Grace and Jefferson come with us to the cabin?”

“That little minx”, Belle gnarled, ignoring Jefferson, who stared at Rowen with a mixture of panic and disbelief. Jefferson leant towards Belle, and she could feel his breath as he murmured into her ear.

“You’re going to a cabin with _Gold_? Now I begin to understand… You _really_ need me.”

Belle still ignored him and started to explain that there was absolutely no need for Rowen to answer Ivy’s ridiculous question, but before she had even opened her mouth, Rowen already caved in. He didn’t stand a chance against Ivy’s huge, wet eyes. “Um… of course. If they want to…” He looked from Ivy to the people clogging the hallway, crinkling his forehead in a display of pure helplessness.

“They don’t”, Belle declared, the same moment that Jefferson said “I can bring beer.”

“Cool. See, Mom, everyone is okay with it!” Ivy jutted out her chin, but she shrank when Belle narrowed her eyes.

“Maybe I should stay home and let you girls have a nice day with your dads.”

“No!” Ivy and Rowen protested at the same time, while Jefferson frowned in confusion. “Dads?”

“Yes, Jefferson. Meet Rowen, Ivy’s father.” Her introduction was followed by an awkward silence in which both men measured each other, Jefferson clearly close to bursting in curiosity, and Rowen with a defiant flare of his nostrils that warned everyone halfway sensible of asking questions.

“I’m going to pack up the food. You can make yourself useful and load the rest of that into the car.” She gestured to the things she had already prepared and piled up in the hallway, from a change of clothes for Ivy and herself to towels, blankets, water, sun blocker, rain coats and wellies and everything that she could think of that could come in handy.

“How long do you plan on staying at the cabin?”, Rowen asked, and Jefferson raised a brow again.

“A day, at most.”

“It looks as if you packed for a month.”

Belle exchanged a look with Jefferson, who seemed to warm up to the occasion, and showed a grin with too much teeth in it. “He’s new to that”, she said, and Jefferson chuckled. They crammed all five of them into Rowen’s Cadillac, with Rowen and Jefferson in the front, eyeing each other (and Jefferson enjoying himself a little too much, which probably was the reason he left his own car in front of Belle’s house and they had to stop at his house for him to pick up beer and food), and Belle and the girls in the back. “You’re going to pay for this”, she whispered to Ivy, and her daughter stared out between the front seats and ignored her. It was uncomfortably quiet in the car, and more than once Belle arranged her clothes, pulling her sleeves down over her wrists and her neckline up, and picked invisible threads off her jeans. The weather was better than the day before, but still, they were greeted by ankle deep mud when they reached the cabin. The girls loved it, and ran off before Belle could force them to help with unpacking.

“I guess that leaves us to do the dirty work”, Jefferson said, with a smile, unaware of Rowen and Belle glaring at him. In the end, it was good they had Jefferson with them, because Rowen would never have gotten a fire started without him. They put up a table under the porch, where it was safe from rain, and Belle freed it from dust and cobwebs, and covered the chairs with cushions and fleece blankets, while Rowen and Jefferson put up the grill on the place in front of the cabin. Rowen had some firewood piled up at the back of the cabin, and it was dry enough to burn, which was lucky, because the woods were still dripping from the rain the day before. The air was washed clean and filled with the scent of wet soil and wood, sharp and clear, with a hint of smoke when the men finally got their fire started. Belle watched them, huddled up in a chair, with a beer, and bit her lips at Rowen’s attempts not to let on how very much out of his depth he was. Somehow it tugged inside Belle’s chest to see him poke at the fire, surrounded by nature, and looking so small and out of place in his suit, his armor so very unfitting for the occasion. After a while, Ivy and Grace returned, both armed with long sticks, and already covered in mud up to their ears, watching their fathers like warriors of the fae people.

It was already past noon when the grill was finally ready to be loaded with meat and tofu, and Belle tasked the girls with washing their hands and setting the table, while she used the gas range in the tiny kitchen of the cabin to brew some coffee. Somehow, everything was far more relaxed than she would have expected, and she suspected that it was the presence of Jefferson and Grace that took the edge off, that gave the day an atmosphere of friends hanging out together, even when Rowen could hardly be called friends with anyone. Despite her lack of sleep and the ever present tingling under her skin, Belle was almost content, and she found herself smiling at Rowen when he carried the first plate laden with steaks and sausages to the table, glowing with pride. And for a moment everything was perfect when Ivy beamed at him and gestured to the chair at her side.

“Rowen, do you want to sit here?”, she asked, and not even if his heart was of stone, he would have been able to decline the girl with her bright eyes and her elusory smile. Belle was too happy over her daughter finally warming up to Rowen to listen to the churning in the pit of her stomach that tried to make her believe they were heading for disaster, like the feeling one had when crossing a creaking bridge of vermiculated wood, across a gorge with its bottom invisible under veils of mist and rocks as sharp as knives.

“Yes, of course”, he murmured, with a smile as happy as it was heartbreaking in its fragility, a smile that shattered when he sat down and a squelching sound made them all fall silent. The only sound was Ivy’s snort, followed by a giggle as she looked at Rowen’s grimace of shock and disgust. But her giggle ebbed away when she met her mother’s eyes and the rage flaring inside them. The only thing Belle knew was that she was spitting mad and ready to decapitate her daughter with the blunt end of a hammer, but every word got stuck in her throat when Rowen let out a breath, followed by a chortle.

“It seems I accidentally sat on your mud cake, young lady. My apologies. You must have forgotten that you placed it under that blanket. Now you’ll have to eat something I grilled, and if that’s not apt punishment, then I don’t know what is.”

“Bummer”, Jefferson said, while Belle closed her eyes and let out the breath she had not known she had been holding.

“I have to admit, although it’s wonderful for my old and creaking spine to sit this soft, it _is_ a little wet and uncomfortable…” Rowen wriggled in his chair, while Ivy watched him with wide eyes, her gloating over her successful prank washed away by his reaction that was so completely unexpected.

“You’re not mad?”, she asked, and Rowen raised a brow and grinned.

“Well, _I_ am, and I know who’s doing the dishes later”, Belle stated, and Ivy deflated.

“I’m lucky enough to always have spare pants in my trunk. Otherwise I would be forced to look as if I had a very embarrassing mishap for the rest of the day.”

“And we would be forced to watch you parade around in underwear all day”, Jefferson said, earning a frown from Rowen, while Belle thought that that would be only a small inconvenience for her.

After they had cleaned Rowen’s chair and he had changed his pants, they could finally eat, and Ivy stabbed at her steak with much more force than the poor thing deserved, exchanging glances with Grace, and remaining silent until none of them could eat another bite. While the kids did the dishes in the tiny kitchen, the adults sat with coffee and beer around the table and listened to the woods.

“I’m glad Grace and Ivy clicked like that”, Belle said after a while, and Jefferson grunted and toasted her with his beer.

“Yes, it’s amazing how fast they latched on to each other.”

“Does Ivy have difficulties making friends?” Rowen didn’t look at them, but out on the lake beside the house, and Belle let her head fall back against the chair, closing her eyes.

“Yes. She’s not very outgoing, and she has a hard time talking with other kids. It’s as if she doesn’t know what to say, or as if she thinks too long and too hard if the effort of talking to other kids is worth it. She observes them. For the longest time, she didn’t have any friends, not until Amber came into her class.”

“And then you had to come here.” It was an observation, but Belle thought she could hear sorrow in Rowen’s voice.

“Hey, if you don’t mind me asking, if Gold is Ivy’s father but you were married to this Greg dude in LA… how did that happen? Ivy, I mean?”

Belle and Rowen both glared at Jefferson, but then Rowen turned to Belle. “Right. How _did_ it happen?”

Belle sighed, and pointed her beer to the large tree in front of the cabin. “Must have been there.”

She could see that Rowen remembered instantly when he swallowed, and closed his eyes, clenching his hands around his beer so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

“Do I even want to know?”, Jefferson asked, and Belle laughed. But it was a mirthless laugh.

“I was young, and I didn’t know that the antibiotics I was taking at that time interfered with the pill. I wasn’t sure yet when I left for California, I thought it was just the stress that messed with my cycle.”

“Are you telling me you suspected that you could be pregnant when you left and still you didn’t say a word?” Now Rowen sounded sharp, and Belle pulled her knees up to make herself small on her chair.

“Um, maybe I should leave you two alone…” Jefferson started to get up, but Belle grabbed his arm and forced him to stay put.

“We won’t be talking about that now. This is supposed to be a fun day.”

“Yeah, I can hardly breathe with all the fun we have”, Rowen growled, but Belle ignored him. Ivy and Grace emerged again, telling them that they were finished, and ran off once more to play, building mud castles and dams at the waterfront of the lake.

“You know, you did good with the mud thing”, Belle said after a while, and Rowen grunted.

“What did you expect me to do, bite off her head?”

Belle didn’t know how to answer, because that was pretty close to what she had expected, so she remained silent. They watched the girls, and Belle could almost pretend that their silence was content. But when she finished her second beer, she grew restless. There was a difference between spending a day with friends without expectations, a difference between hanging out with people that were familiar with each other, that knew and trusted each other, and spending the day in constant tension, with electricity prickling on her skin whenever her eyes met Rowen’s, and the constant impression that she had to hide something, not to allow the pull she felt towards him to be seen, not to be acknowledged. Jefferson seemed completely happy, and it didn’t seem to bother him that he had to uphold the conversation most of the time. He asked about their lives in LA, and Belle was only too aware of how intently Rowen listened to everything she let out. Even when she didn’t look at him, his shadow always lingered at her periphery, absorbing every little tale she recounted about Ivy’s life. She was careful not to mention anything that had to do with Greg. Or anything that had to do with herself. She was glad when the day came to an end, finally, and they packed up again. The girls were still playing, reluctant to leave, and Belle watched them, leaning against the tree on the place before the cabin, her fingertips on the bark that still seemed drenched with the passion she had once felt, pinned against the thick trunk, her hair getting caught in the deep ridges of its bark. Jefferson had gone over to lure the girls back to the car, after washing off the thickest crusts of mud from their faces and limbs in the shallow water of the shore. There was a change in the air around her, and Belle knew without looking back that Rowen had stepped to her. She didn’t flinch when he lifted a hand and brushed her hair aside, baring the nape of her neck to him, and placed his hand there, wordlessly. His touch was dry, familiar, and somehow… right. Comfortable. She leant back, her shoulders sagging, bending her head, and allowed him to rub little circles over the bumps of her spine.

“I enjoyed this day. Thank you, Belle.”

“Despite the mud?”

He chuckled, and his breath on her skin made her shiver. “I take it as a positive sign that I’m not that scary anymore.” Belle felt him warm at her back as he stepped even closer, and she allowed her head to fall back, only a tiny little bit, to feel his breath waft through her hair, to feel him as close as she possibly could without touching him. She would crumble if she touched him.

“I was wondering”, he murmured, and his hand wandered from the nape of her neck to her shoulder, clasping her with his big hand, hooking his thumb into the neckline of her shirt. “Have you been happy, in those ten years? Have you been loved, and adored? I look at you, and see the love you have for Ivy. But there is so much… sadness. You look broken, and lost. As if you shut the part of you away that always had been blossoming. As if you built a wall around your heart.”

Belle clawed her hand into the bark of the tree, searching for strength, before she turned to face him, forcing him to let go of her shoulder. “We never love as deeply, as tall as when we are young. The first love always is the deepest. If you’re asking if I loved again like I loved you, the answer is no. But I did love again. I wasn’t without love in those ten years.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I never wanted you unhappy.”

“Then why were you so insistent that I leave? Was it so hard to believe that I could have been happy with you?”

“Oh Belle, I just didn't want you to wake up one day and regret that you never experienced anything else but a dull life with me.”

“And yet here I am, more lost and broken than ever. I loved and lost so much that I don’t want to take that risk again.”

“I’m sorry”, he whispered, and lifted his hand again to trace her cheek, following her pulse down her throat to where her heartbeat trembled in the hollow between her collarbones.

“I caught the elves and de-mudded them, and we’re ready to go”, Jefferson said, from a few feet away, and Belle flinched away from Rowen, as if they had been caught doing something indecent. Rowen pressed his lips into a smile that was more a grimace than anything else.

“Alright. Let’s bring you all home safely and in one piece.”

Rowen drove them all back to Belle’s place, and Belle went as slow as possible about unloading the car, hoping that Jefferson would leave before she was finished and there was no reason for Rowen to stay any longer. Luckily, Grace was just as tired as Ivy, and Jefferson packed her into his car and left after a last grin at Belle and Rowen. Rowen wanted to leave, too, but Belle grasped his hand just when he wanted to leave her kitchen, after carrying the last bowl of leftovers inside.

“Ivy, time to take a bath!”

Ivy pouted, and protested, and glared at Rowen, but Belle remained hard. Finally her daughter gave in, and stomped up the stairs, banging the door of the bathroom shut behind herself, and Belle took a deep breath before she turned to face Rowen, who was as still as a stone at her side.

“I want you to stay so you can say goodnight to her.”

He looked down at her hand around his wrist, and licked his lips. “Are you sure?”

“I only ask you to bring her to bed with me. I’m not asking for anything else.”

“Still. This is… more than I hoped for this day.”

When he turned his hand in her grip and laced his fingers with hers, Belle wondered if she did the right thing. If it wasn’t too soon. And if she would be able to send him away, after bringing Ivy to bed. It was her own weakness, coiling in her lower belly, that scared her most of all.  


	11. Chapter 11

For as long as Ivy was in the bathroom, Belle seated Rowen in the living room and went to change into something more comfortable. She hesitated for a moment in front of her wardrobe, biting her lip because she couldn’t decide. Up until now, for some reason she didn’t want to think about, she had taken pains in covering up her tattoos, so Rowen wouldn’t notice them. They seemed to be the visible proof that she had changed, that she really was no longer the girl that once loved him so foolishly. She still loved him, but no longer at expense of her self-respect. He would always be a part of her, as ingrained in her bones as the tree on her back was in her skin, but she knew that she didn’t need to be in a relationship with him to love him, or even in contact at all. She could love from afar, and it was probably healthier for her to do so anyway. Only that the loving-from-afar-option was kind of out of the window now. She could no longer stay away, now that he knew of Ivy and apparently wanted a place in her life. If only she knew what he wanted of her. Certainly not a relationship, judging by the disappointment he showed in the person she had become. He might have kissed her, and watched her with ardent eyes, might have touched her in a way she could only interpret as _possessive_ – a way her flesh still responded to as weak and ignominious as ever – but not with one syllable had he hinted at wanting _her_. He still treated her like he always had, like the girl that didn’t need to be bothered with the process of making decisions, and the degrading “ _good girl_ ” came as readily to his lips as ever. There had been a time when she thrived on his praise. She had to be away to realize that it wasn’t really a praise but a debasement.

In the end, she decided for sweatpants and a shirt wide enough to use it as a sail if she ever came in need of one, but she passed on the bra, telling herself that it was her home, and her right to be as comfortable as she wanted to be, and that was the only – the _onliest_ – reason for her decision. Besides, her bras were more decorative than necessary anyways. When she came down again, after peeking into the bathroom and checking if Ivy maybe had fallen asleep in the tub, she found him sitting on her tiny couch, staring down at his folded hands, so far away with his thoughts that he didn’t notice her right away.

“Hey”, she said, and his head jerked up, his eyes for a moment out of focus until he found her standing in the door.

“Hey.”

“It will only take a few more minutes…”

“Oh, don’t worry. I have time. There’s no one waiting for me…”

They fell silent, and Belle fiddled with the hem of her shirt. “Can I get you something to drink?” She really longed for a drink. They had brought back the two bottles of wine she had packed for the cabin unopened. Maybe wine would numb the shaking of her hands.

“No, thank you. I’m content.”

She wondered if he saw how she trembled. If he wanted to keep her in this state of insecurity. She looked at her naked toes, wriggling them, and shifting her weight. Just when she contemplated to open that wine regardless, she heard the bathroom door, and her breath left her with a sigh of relief. “I’ll… go help her with drying her hair. Just a moment, okay?”

Rowen frowned, but he nodded, and Belle turned and fled. It was too soon. She shouldn’t have asked him to stay. But it was too late now, and she had to go through with it. “Damned hormones”, she whispered to herself on her way up the stairs, and she put on a smile for Ivy, who had wrapped herself in a towel and dripped water from her hair all over her room while she searched for her nightie.

“It’s here”, Belle said, picking up the pink gown, and helped Ivy to pull it over her head. She still had no idea how to breach the subject of Rowen being still there to tuck her into bed later when she blew Ivy’s hair dry, deaf to the complaints when the comb snagged Ivy’s curls. In the end, she decided for just blurting it out. “Brush your teeth, and then Rowen and I will tuck you in.”

“What? No. Please, Mom, I’m sure he’ll scold me.”

“And rightfully so. What on earth were you thinking?”

Ivy pressed her lips into a thin line, and her cheekbones glowed with heat, but she remained silent. Belle sighed, and pressed a kiss to Ivy’s forehead. “Go to bed, baby, and I let Rowen know.”

“But don’t leave me alone with him.”

“You weren’t afraid today, when you thought it was a good idea to play a trick on him.” Belle ignored Ivy’s wobbling lip and went downstairs to fetch Rowen. He still sat on the couch like someone waiting for a bus that never came. He looked so small. So lost. Belle stepped to the couch and took his hand, with a smile that was just as much meant to reassure herself as it was meant to encourage him. Still, he was leaning heavier on his cane than he used to when he followed her up the stairs, holding on to her hand like a life line. Belle wished she had a plan.

“Ok, don’t panic, be nice, and not a word about the mud thing”, she said when they paused at Ivy’s door, and she narrowed her eyes when Rowen clenched his jaws.

“I’m not panicking, I’m always nice and I didn’t plan to say anything about the mud thing. That’s already forgotten.”

“Liar.”

Now Rowen narrowed his eyes. “To which one?”

“All of it.” Belle didn’t wait for him to protest. He was just as panicking as she was, and the rest… well, _nice_ was not the first word coming to her mind when she thought of him. Ivy had already climbed into bed, her back to the door, and she pretended to be already asleep. In the crook of her arm, pressed tightly to her chest, she held her plush crocodile. Most of the time, she pretended to be already too old for having a plushie, but the crocodile that she had since her second birthday still slept in her bed, a faithful cushion for her cheeks. It was partly hairless, and the stuffing had pretty much wandered into a tight ball in its stomach, but Ivy loved Crocky more than anything.

“Hey, baby. I know you don’t sleep yet. Come, say goodnight to Rowen.” Belle pulled Rowen to the bed, and while she sat down at the edge of the mattress, he remained standing beside the bed, folding his hands over the handle of his cane, his fingers twitching in his effort to appear calm and relaxed. He failed. Ivy didn’t turn around, not even when Belle walked her fingertips up her arm, until she reached her ear and tickled her. “Hm, hm, hm, if my baby sleeps already, there’s no need for me to say my rhyme.” She pretended to get up again, and that did the trick. Ivy turned around and grasped her hand.

“No, I wanna hear it. Please.”

“Of course. Say goodnight to Rowen, will you?”

Ivy bit her lip and pressed her crocodile even tighter to her chest, and she didn’t look at Rowen when she mumbled into her shaggy plushie. “Goodnight, Mr. Gold.”

Rowen startled them both by taking the last step to the bed and sitting down beside Belle, much too close on the small bed, and Belle had to bent back when he leant over Ivy and placed his hand over hers on her crocodile. “Darling, you can still call me Rowen, even when you don’t plan to play a trick on me.” He ignored Belle’s glare, and she poked his leg. But Ivy seemed much calmer than Belle would have expected.

“Okay. Goodnight, Rowen.”

“Goodnight, Ivy. Do you want to know what my mother used to say to me when she brought me to bed?”

Ivy hid her face behind the crocodile in her arms, but she nodded, and Belle held her breath when Rowen smiled, warm and full of something that would break her heart if she looked closer at it.

“Alright. Sleep tight my sweetest pea and in your bed make no pee pee.”

Belle clapped her hand to her mouth to muffle her snort, and for a moment Ivy stared at Rowen as if she wasn’t sure if he was really serious. When he kept smiling, Ivy looked from him to Belle, and a hesitant smile flitted over her lips. “Did she really say that?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

Ivy giggled into her crocodile, and Belle saw Rowen’s hand tremble as he pulled it back from Ivy’s arm. “My Mom’s rhyme is prettier”, Ivy said, and Rowen waggled his eyebrows, and the movement somehow sprang over and suddenly his whole head waggled.

“Well, I have to hear that to believe it. My mother’s words were very wise.”

Belle did her best not to look at Rowen when she lifted her palm up, so Ivy could put hers against it and tip her fingertips against her mother’s to the rhythm of the words.

“It’s time to sleep now love of mine,  
and let the vine of love entwine  
us with the moon and starry sky  
for in our dreams we may fly high  
and don’t despair for I’ll be here  
watching over you my dear  
To keep you safe and snug  
in my loving hug.”

When she had ended, Belle bent down to press a kiss to her daughter’s lips, and Ivy hugged her, maybe a little tighter than usual. “Love you, Mom.”

“And I love you, baby. Sleep tight!” Belle got to her feet, pulling Rowen with her. He followed her without protest, sending a last “Sleep tight” to Ivy, and he didn’t say a word until they were back downstairs in the tiny hallway.

“Now I gladly take that drink.” Somehow, he still held on to her hand, and Belle had no idea how it had happened. And she didn’t want to let go, which worried her the most. She swallowed, and licked her lips, and, with a deep breath, opened her hand to let go of him.

“Wait in the living room”, she said, and almost winced over the hoarseness of her voice. She waited until he was out of sight before she hurried into the kitchen to bend over the sink and splash cold water to her face. “This is ridiculous”, she told herself through clenched teeth, and wished she could scream into a pillow. Instead, she dried her face with a dishtowel and picked up a bottle of wine and two glasses. She was almost sure to look perfectly composed when she entered the living room, where Rowen sat on her couch, looking like a bird of prey in a chicken coop, or a panther in a dog kennel, too genteel for her ordinary home. Her ordinary life. She was almost ashamed when she set the glasses down on the couch table and opened the screw cap of the cheap wine.

“You’re wet”, he observed, after toasting her, while Belle still stood in front of the couch he occupied, and she choked and almost spit out her wine.

“What?”

“Your shirt.” Rowen pointed his glass to her chest, and only then did Belle realize that she had splashed water not only to her face but down her front as well. Her face was too hot, and she couldn’t meet his eyes, instead fixing them on his hands, and the delicate stem of the wine glass between his well tended fingers. “Come here”, he said, setting down his glass and patting the couch at his side, and Belle obeyed as if in trance. She was shaking helplessly as she squeezed herself to his side and Rowen placed his arm around her, his hand resting on her hip. “Are you alright?”, he asked, hardly more than a whisper, and he clenched his free hand into his pants, just above the knee. Belle couldn’t tear her eyes away from that hand, from his fingers, strong and smooth, with tiny hair on the back, and perfectly filed and polished nails.

“I don’t know.”

Rowen moved his hand from his knee, up to her chin, and tilted her face up. Her skin prickled where he touched her, and she shivered when he let his fingertips whisper along her jaw, down the side of her neck. His thumb rested against the frantic beat of her pulse in her throat, and his palm was warm against her skin, applying only the tiniest bit of pressure, just enough to keep her in place, to keep her fixated and looking at him. “Thank you for letting me stay to say goodnight to… Ivy.”

She knew that he had wanted to say “my daughter”, and knew that he abstained from it to not seem presumptuous and invasive. “I… you’re welcome.” She wanted to look down, desperately. Wanted to look down to be safe enough to gain control over her breathing, the mortifying panting, the beat of her heart that pounded in her mouth, in her throat, below her navel, too fast and too hard, heating her skin with the rush of her blood. He trailed his thumb down her throat, to the hollow between her collarbones, and down to the neckline of her shirt, wet and cold from the water.

“I thought about the kiss yesterday. Couldn’t think of anything else, despite having a whole day with Ivy. When I saw you leaning against that tree, I yearned to kiss you again.”

Belle swallowed, and huddled up against him, into his arm, leaning her head against his shoulder so she didn’t have to look at him. His hand was still on her chest, above her heart. “My opinion hasn’t changed since yesterday. And really, Rowen, what do you want of me? Do you want me as your affair? Do you want me in your bed, or do you want me in your life, or what do you want? I don’t want this to get painful and complicated. This isn’t any longer just about you and me, not anymore. It’s about you and Ivy.”

“I know. And I don’t know. Seeing you again, after all this years, made me realize how empty I was without you.”

Belle leant forward and placed her wine glass on the couch table, and got up to kneel on the couch, pushing against his upper arm until he let his hand fall away from her hip, and furrowed his brows at her. “You may not see it, Rowen, but I did have a life away from you. I’m not the same person that left you. I have changed in more ways than you can fathom, and I think you didn’t ever see me as what I was anyway. I was just a girl to you, a silly, naïve little thing to amuse and distract yourself with, never a person. You decided that our time was up and that I had to go, and you never even considered that this, maybe, wasn’t what _I_ wanted.”

“That’s not true.”

“Then what is the truth? Tell me.”

“I loved you.” He stated it as if would answer her every question, as if it was enough to make her forget the pain of being rejected and sent away. He must have seen that his answer wasn’t enough, and he clasped her shoulders, almost like he had done it in his shop after finding out about Ivy, and Belle wondered if he would shake her again. Somehow, that thought calmed her. “I loved you so much that I wanted you to live life to its fullest, to experience it with every fiber, to go to college, to have the adventures you dreamed of, not to settle for someone twenty years your senior, someone whose life was lived.”

“But I didn’t have the adventures I dreamed of. My adventures were dark and terrible years away from you.”

His grip tightened, to a painful extent, and Belle closed her eyes, preparing for his violent outburst. Yet, her limbs were like water, and if he let go of her, she would crumble and dissolve.

“And yet you didn’t come back. You had my child without telling me, you let someone else be a father to my child, and you let me miss ten years of her life. You made me miss watching her grow inside you, made me miss her birth and her first smile and her first words and her first steps and there is nothing that can bring me back the time I lost, the things I missed. Do you have any idea how painful that is for me? Do you know how much it hurts to look at her and see the fear in her eyes?”

“I’m sorry. Maybe if things had been different…”

“But they weren’t.”

Belle had no idea how this evening, that had started so peaceful, had turned into this, this turmoil of anger and pain and regret. He had spoken of kisses, and now they were here, and his well-groomed fingers were boring into her flesh and his scowl had her trembling and weak.

“It was an emergency c-section. I had been in labor for sixteen hours, and her heartbeat was getting weak, and she wasn’t moving down, so they did a c-section. Maybe they damaged a nerve or something, I don’t know, because I was in pain for months. I could hardly walk. They told me not to make such a fuss, c-sections are just routine procedures after all, and I was imagining the pain. But I was not imagining that I couldn’t stand for long enough to change my daughter’s diapers for six weeks. Greg was the one who did it, and he was the one who carried her around for hours because of her stomach ache. Do you want to see the scar?”

At some point during her rambling speech, she had looked up, and somehow their eyes were locked, sunken so deep into each other’s eyes that Belle saw nothing but his dark gaze, not even her own reflection.

“Show me”, he rasped, and Belle took in a deep breath, until the expansion of her ribcage hurt and her sides stitched. She struggled to her feet, out of his grip, of his hands that seemed to have clenched into clamps around her arms. He loosened his grip, but didn’t let go completely, instead clasping her wrists and pulling her between his open legs. Only when she tugged at the waistband of her sweatpants, and lifted the hem of her shirt, he let go of her wrists and cupped her hips. He grew still, so still when she pulled down her pants, and the edge of her panties, just enough to expose the fine scar just above her pubic mound. Biting her lip, she watched him, and allowed him to trail the white line with his thumb. He followed the vine that was entwined with it, followed it up to her hip, to the passion flower blossoming there, and he traced around its five outer petals and its corona. “Passion vine for suffering”, he whispered, and somehow it wasn’t a question. Still, Belle answered.

“Yes. It was my first tattoo.”

He looked up, locked eyes again, and all of a sudden she remembered their first time, when he had looked at her just like this, asking for permission without words before taking the last piece of clothing from her, laying her bare and naked before him. She nodded.

Careful, as if he was lifting the veil off something delicate and breakable, Rowen pushed up her shirt, following the vines of the clematis virginiana with his eyes, from the side of her ribcage up, climbing up between her breasts and along her side, ending in a cluster of blossoms above her heart.

“What does this one mean?”

“It’s a love vine. A clematis.”

Holding her shirt up with one hand, he traced the vine from where it arose up to the flower above her heart, his fingertips just barely touching her skin. “Are there more?”

Belle hesitated. But her face was still of glass, and he looked up and saw the answer as clear as day on her skin. “One”, she whispered, pulling her shirt over her head and turning around. She closed her eyes and waited.

“A rowan tree.” His voice was thick, raw, and she felt his fingertips grazing along her spine, following the trunk of the tree, and spreading out, following its branches, until his hands encompassed her ribcage beneath her shoulder blades, like folded wings across her back.

“Yes.”

“Beautiful.” He leant forward, and she felt his breath on her skin just before he pressed a kiss to her spine. She tried to blink away the stinging in her eyes, and swallow down the bitterness in her tight throat.

“Looks like fucking a tree in the ass, Greg said.” The chill of her own voice made her shiver, and Rowen’s hands fell away. Hands like his, so clean and neat, shouldn’t touch something as soiled and sordid as she was.

“And you loved him?”

Belle looked down at the couch table before her, at their wine glasses, let her head fall down and her spine stretch. “No.”

“Then why didn’t you leave him?”

It was somehow comforting to talk like this, without facing him, without seeing him and the judgment in his eyes, even though she was half naked and defenseless, at his mercy. She rolled her shirt into a tight ball, pressing it against her chest, and hugged herself. “My… friend, Amy… she begged me to leave him. But Ivy was born during our marriage, he was her legal parent, and he threatened me with a custody battle if I left, one that I could neither afford nor, probably, win. He could afford the best lawyers, and I… I didn’t even have a qualification for anything. His father threatened to disinherit Greg if he got divorced, regardless of the fact that he – my father in law – detested me. So, Greg used Ivy as long as he needed her to secure this marriage, but when his father died and he no longer needed us, he dropped her. And me.”

Rowen remained silent for so long that Belle was sure he would get up and leave, repelled by the petty thing she had become, and she flinched when he touched her again, cupping her hips and painting circles with his thumbs above her bones. “So, you lied, today, when I asked you if you’ve been loved.”

Belle laughed, a hollow sound that she stifled as soon as it left her lips, because it betrayed too much of what she looked like inside. “No. I didn’t lie. Look at the tree.”

Again he traced the stem of the tree on her back, and his fingertips paused when he found the nearly invisible heart etched into its bark, beneath the first branch, with the initials A and B inside it. It could have been mistaken for a signature, but it was not. “So, what happened?”, he asked, in a whisper, and returning his palm to her hip.

“She found someone who was available. Not like me.”

“I’m sorry.”

Belle bit her lip. There was nothing she could say. The past was just that; a time gone by and waiting to be forgotten. She had long since stopped to rail against the way her life had turned out, against her decisions and choices. The only way was forward anyways.

“Turn around”, Rowen said, and Belle dropped her shirt and obeyed, presenting herself naked, bare and vulnerable to him, he who was still in his armor, still as distant and closed off as ever. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of her sweatpants, ready to disrobe her completely, to take the last bit of dignity from her. Belle stared into the void between them, that distance that made it hard to breathe. “Look at me, Belle.”

He waited until she lifted her eyes to meet his gaze. “Do you want me to leave?”

Belle tried to bite back the tears, tried to swallow the sob that clogged her throat and made her face quiver, but in the end, she pressed her eyes shut and let the tears escape, bedewing her face hot and so very humiliating. “Yes.”

“It’s ok, darling. This day was a lot. I’ll see you two on Tuesday.” He reached for his cane and struggled to his feet, and he pressed a kiss to her forehead. In turning away from her, he adjusted himself in his pants, and Belle quickly averted her eyes. “I find my way out”, he murmured, and Belle nodded without looking at him, hugging herself and covering up her naked breasts. She still stood there when the entrance door closed behind him, her lungs and throat and nose burning with unshed tears. She had bared herself to her very soul, her soul that she wore on her skin, and yet he had let on nothing of himself, continued to wear his three-piece-armor and the hide of a shark. And he left her bleeding from his bite, lost and defeated, just like he always had.  


	12. Chapter 12

She was broken in more ways than he could have imagined. There was an itch in his fingertips, a yearning to put her back together, to restore her… but then, that would be wrong. Wanting her back like he remembered her, with shining eyes and a smile of hope, would take something from her. No, he didn’t want to restore her. He wanted to hold her, and soothe the pain she wore so visibly on her skin. Belle was right, he realized. He didn’t know what he wanted of her, other than having a place in his daughter’s life. Threatening Belle had come so naturally, a first reaction so ingrained that it happened before he had really thought about the consequences. He was good at threatening people, and it was a reliable way to deal with the peasants. Only Belle wasn’t a peasant, and had never been.

He had always been so very good at destroying what he loved.

Rowen still had no idea how she ever fell for him in the first place. What about him made the girl she had once been look at him and decide to kiss him? It had hardly been his charming conduct, nor his non-existent generosity. His smile was crooked, and he was hardly the tall, blond athlete that seemed to be the default ideal of attractiveness. All he had was power, but Belle had never acted as if she cared much for that. His gifts had made her uncomfortable, and she neither asked for his favors nor for his benevolence. Of course she would decline when he tried to shove his money at her. Not even her very real need could make her ignore the catch that came with his money: He himself. He could no longer reproach her for it, after learning what her life had been.

And if he was completely honest… It had been he himself who started it all, who started to chip away on her independence in the first place. She had been innocent, and he took that innocence from her, piece by piece, like he had taken her clothing that first night, until he had her naked and bare and open before him. When he got home that night, after she had exposed herself once more to him, had shown him her beautiful self, inked and scarred, he went upstairs into his bedroom to take out the only photography he had of her, taken with a vintage Kodak Brownie Target Six-20 at his shop, and developed in his own little darkroom in the basement of his house. Taking that photo had been another exercise in taking her innocence, another test in how far he could take things until she would put down her foot and defy him, and give him another one of those moments he lived for, when she showed her spine of steel and her strong will. The simple black and white photography with its high contrast and almost ghostlike focus, making it look like a candid from before 1920, still had the same effect on him, still made his spine prickle and his mouth flood with saliva just from looking at it.

He had called the flower shop that day, when he took the photo, after seeing her father’s truck drive by his shop, knowing that she had to be alone, and ordered a bouquet, one he had planned long in advance to make sure he got the right flowers.

“I want to order a bouquet, special delivery to my shop. Can you do that?”, he asked, and for a moment all he heard was her breath hitching in her throat.

“Yes, of course.” There had been a slight question in her voice, and Rowen smiled.

“Good.” He made sure to make his praise audible in his voice, knowing what the low hum did to her, and entertaining the image of her white teeth biting her lower lip and her eyes fluttering shut for a moment. “I’d like a bouquet of white roses, Tuberose and deep red roses…” He paused, listening to her deep breathing, becoming more ragged with each flower he listed. “Are you alone, sweetheart?”, he asked, and heard her swallow.

“Yes.”

“Tell me their meaning.”

She hesitated for a moment, and he imagined her standing behind her working table and clawing her free hand into her skirt, damp with sweat. “White roses stand for Innocence. Purity. Humility. Secrecy. Deep red roses for bashfulness and shame. Tuberose for pleasure.” With each word, her voice lost a bit of its strength, got shakier, and his skin tightened. She knew exactly what this was leading to.

“Very good. Do you have Dog Rose?”

Again she hesitated, and he couldn’t help the grin on his face widening. “They’re not common in bouquets…”

“That’s not what I asked, darling.”

“I guess I have some behind the greenhouse.”

“You guess?” He allowed his voice to sound stern, and she sucked in a deep breath.

“I have Dog Rose, yes.”

“Add it, too. Tell me what it means.”

“Rowen…” He waited for her to form a sentence, to articulate a refusal, but instead, she decided to answer, and her voice went up a notch as she did so. “Pleasure and pain.”

“Are you already wet, darling?” His question was blunt, and he almost expected her to hang up on him, but she wasn’t there yet.

“I don’t know”, she whispered, and her voice trembled, and made him shiver in response.

“You know there is a way to find out, don’t you?”

“Someone could come in and see me at any moment!”

“And?”

Belle groaned, and he knew he had her, knew she was going to do anything he asked of her. His own throat grew tight with the idea of her pulling up her skirt, and slipping her fingers into her plain cotton panties, the only kind she owned, and he had to grab the edge of his workbench to not touch himself. She made a sound at the other end of the line, and he held his breath.

“Are you already touching yourself, darling?”, he asked, and her answer was a whimper, and a moaned “yes”.

“Good. I want you to arrange the bouquet with a decoration of grass around it. Tell me its meaning.”

He had to wait for her answer, and the pause intensified the tense heat gathering in his lower belly, and made him grow harder the longer it took her to answer. When she finally did, it was hardly more than a breath. “Submission.”

“Good girl. I want your panties to be soaked when you deliver the bouquet to my shop. Can you do that?”

Her breathing came ragged, almost panting, and he tightened his clutch on the edge of the table. “Yes”, she said, finally, and Rowen let out his breath.

“Don’t make me wait too long.”

It took her not longer than twenty minutes to come to his shop, and her face was flushed when she entered, her eyes gleaming with a mix of anticipation and nervousness. Rowen didn’t say a word, instead greeting her with a smile, and pulling the curtain into the back room aside. Her face darkened even more, if possible, and she held the bouquet to her chest like a bride when she walked past him and into the back. He followed her, and used the moment when she turned around in the middle of the room to slip his hand around the nape of her neck and pull her against him for a kiss, crushing the bouquet between them. Belle gasped into his mouth, but only a few moments later, she melted against him, letting him feel the heat of her body through the flimsy fabric of her blouse and skirt, making him hard again in an instant. Smiling, he let go of her, and caressed her cheek when she broke the kiss and blinked at him out of heavy-lidded eyes. But her eyes widened when he let his hand fall down to her blouse, and started to unbutton it, one handed, with skilled fingers and without hesitation. Under his fingertips, her skin trembled, and goose bumps followed in the wake of his touch when he pushed the blouse off her shoulders, never letting go of her gaze. Belle licked her lips, leaving behind a wet sheen that made him thirst for her kiss again. But first things first.

“Turn around, sweetheart”, he rasped, and snapped off her bra when she did so. Her breath hitched in her throat once more when he pressed his lips to her naked shoulder, flicking his tongue over her skin before he planted a gentle bite where his lips had been, a bite that would leave a mark only he would see, only he would know to be there, hidden beneath her clothes. He wanted all of her body to be covered with his marks, and Belle moaned and let her head fall forward when he buried his teeth a little deeper in her flesh, and placed his hand on her waist, so tiny and fragile under his palm.

“Step to the table, darling, and bend a little forward. I want to see if you did what I asked of you.”

Belle swallowed, but she did what he asked of her, clenching one hand around the bouquet and holding on to it. Her nipples pebbled, hardly because of the temperature, since it wasn’t cold, but because of the exposure to his gaze. She still was so innocent, and each request of his had her fighting with her sense of shame. Rowen stepped close behind her, breathed onto her neck, and used the tip of his cane to nudge her feet apart, and the handle, warm from his grip, to slowly, slowly lift the hem of her skirt and expose her to his gaze. She bent her head, swallowed air, and Rowen hummed in approval. Her white cotton panties had a dark patch between her legs, soaked from her juices, and she shivered and moaned when he trailed his fingertips over the stain.

“Well done, my precious. May I take a picture?”

“What?”

“I have been working with a vintage camera this morning. I’d love to have a memento of this moment. And I would be the only one to ever look at it.”

Belle bit her lip, staring down at the table, and he slipped a finger inside her panties to dip it into her wet pussy, to help her with her decision. She mewled and pushed back against his touch, and keened when he pulled back his hand.

“You promise that no one will ever see it, apart from you?”

“Of course, sweetheart. This moment belongs just to you and me. No one else.”

Belle took in a deep breath. “Okay.”

“That’s my brave girl. Thank you, darling.” He stepped away and took up the camera, and took the picture he was now holding. Belle had her naked back to him, bent over the table, looking over her shoulder, and she bit her lip in a smile, her hand still clenched around the flowers, crushed and broken. The picture showed only a hint of the swell of her breast, but beneath the skirt gathering around her hips, between her legs ever so slightly spread, the dark stain on her panties was as visible as the stain of the bloodied key on the hands of Bluebeard’s wife. Somehow fitting that the only keepsake to be left of their time together was a photography that showed his own depravity as clearly as it showed her trust in him, and her humility. Looking at it now, he couldn’t help but choke on bitterness. Maybe her life had ultimately broken her, but he was the one to start the process, pushing her farther and farther in his need for her to refuse him. Because of his own need for resistance, he pushed her away. Maybe he had wanted her to protest, to _really_ protest when he told her to go, at the same time that he wanted her to go and conquer the world. He couldn’t have both, and she didn’t get either. And how could he expect her to put her foot down in that one, crucial decision, and stay, when he was the one to gradually reduce not only her inhibitions but also the independence of her mind. He only got what he deserved, and she deserved so much better than what she got.

The next morning, he called the flower shop from his shop to order another bouquet. He had her father on the line, but for once, he was glad for it. Moe French didn’t ask questions when he asked for a bouquet of purple hyacinths and red carnations to be delivered to his shop, even though the colors didn’t really go well together. For Moe French, the only thing of importance was the extra fee Gold paid for special delivery, everything else was irrelevant.

Belle entered his shop around ten, the bouquet in her hand wrapped in paper, and she didn’t look at him when she crossed the salesroom and placed it on the counter beside the register.

“Thank you for bringing this by so quickly”, he said, but Belle still didn’t meet his eyes.

“You’re paying for extra fast delivery. That’s my job.”

“Of course.” Rowen took up the bouquet and unwrapped it. Belle had done a lovely job, finding a way to bind the flowers together that didn’t look completely atrocious. “Tell me their meaning.”

Now she looked up and glared at him. “You know that it takes more than a bouquet, right?”

“I am aware of that, yes. So, what do these mean?” He pointed at a carnation, brushing over the petals with a sad smile.

“My heart aches for you.”

“And these?” Somehow, the hyacinths looked as if they were bleeding, as if the red carnations surrounding them were drops of blood, falling from purple veins.

“Please forgive me.”

“Please forgive me, Belle.”

“What do you need to be forgiven for? I am the one who wronged you.”

“Yes. But I was the one who didn’t give you a choice. I decided that it would be the best for you to leave, regardless of the fact that I wanted you to stay with me. I pushed you away, burnt the bridges and despised you for not turning back.”

Belle licked her lips, and stared at the bouquet in his hand. “What exactly are you asking?”

“Nothing. You asked me what it is I want of you now. The truth is, back then, I wanted you to decide to fight me and stay, and I wanted you to have your best chance and leave. Do you see the problem?”

“No matter what I decided, it would have been wrong in any case.” She reached over the counter and plucked a petal off a carnation, rubbing it between her fingertips.

“Exactly. So I understand that now, ten years after I sent you away without giving you a real choice, you finally have the chance to decide for yourself. It is at my expense, and it pains me at times, but I respect your decisions nevertheless. So, if you don’t want to forgive me for pressuring you, if you don’t want to forgive me for doing something unforgivable and turning violent towards you, then I accept that.”

“So this is what you say you’re going to do. But what is it you want?” Belle plucked another petal, and her cheeks were tinted in a shade of red similar to that of the carnations. He wished he could tilt her face up and make her look at him, but the realization that his behavior towards her these days wasn’t at all different from the past still echoed under his skin, and made his heart ring heavy and loud like a deep bell in his chest. He put the bouquet down and rounded the counter, and Belle turned to face him, even when she fixed her eyes once more on the knot of his tie and not on his face.

“I want to hold you until you’re whole again. I want to be the tree for you to lean on. But if that’s not what you want, then I can live with that, too. I look at you and feel like you never got that best chance that I wanted you to have when I sent you away. So I want you to have it now. I want to be with you, but I want you to choose that, and not do something just because I want it. If you choose that you don’t want me in your life again as a partner, maybe even a lover, then so be it.” He took care not to touch her, although all he wanted was to place his hands on her arms, above her elbows, and pull her closer. He resisted the urge, and clenched one hand around his cane, the other around the edge of the counter.

“You said you would never forgive me.” Belle stepped closer, only the tiniest bit, but he had to hold back even more not to sway towards her to wrap his arms around her.

“And I can’t. Not yet, and maybe never. But I can choose if I rather despise you for it, or accept it as something that can’t be changed anymore and move on.”

Belle moved even closer, so close he would be able to bury his face in her hair if he bent his head, and he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. “So what is it you’re saying?”, she murmured, and she could be asking his tie by the way she looked at it. He knew better now than to ask her to look at him.

“That despite my anger, my hurt and my despair over the way you changed, I still love you. I wanted you to grow up and become your own person, and that you did. Maybe not like I imagined it, but that was presumptuous of me to begin with. I cannot want you to be your own person and exactly like I expect you to be at the same time.”

Belle bit her lip, and she was so close now that he felt her warmth through his suit, and felt her breath on his throat when she looked up. “So you want to… try again? Have a relationship with me?”

Rowen bent his head, now that she finally met his eyes, to be as close as he dared without touching her. “I’d rather not call it _try_ _again_. I’d like to be in a relationship with you, yes, but… with you. With Belle as you are now. And just… let Belle of the past out of it. I want to get to know you from the start. As if I had never known you before.”

“How illusory.” Her hand fluttered over his chest, hardly touching him, and she straightened the knot of his tie with a trembling smile.

“Maybe I am naïve.”

“Maybe we both still are.” She slid her hand along his collar to the back of his head, and raked through his hair, eliciting a shiver that trickled down his spine slow like honey. “I still love you Rowen. I always have. This isn’t easy, but I… I want to be with you, too. I want to try having a real relationship with you…” Belle went up to tiptoes, and his breath hitched in his throat when she placed her lips on his, as soft and shy as their very first kiss, and almost as fatal to his bones and flesh as back then, turning his skeleton to syrup and his muscles to water. He was still tingling when she pulled back again, and he blinked to find his way back to her. “I really want to be with you, even though it hurts. I want to try again. But I don’t want us to enter a sexual relationship as long as Ivy hasn’t adjusted to the situation. I want to get her used to you being around, slowly, and I want her to be comfortable with you before we take this to the next level.”

“So… relationship, yes, but no sex?” His insides were filled with so much heat that he doubted he would even be able to let her walk out of his shop unmolested, and he clenched his hand tighter around the handle of his cane until his bones were close to snapping to distract himself from the coiling desire down in his pants.

Belle smiled. “Exactly. Do you think we can make that work?”

“Of course.” He gave his best to sound confident, and his stomach lurched when Belle’s smile widened into a smile that reminded him so much of the girl she had once been that it blinded him for a moment. It was as if the clouds on a grey sky, heavy with rain, ripped apart and let the sun shine through. “Then how do we go about this?”

“How about a movie night for a start? We could watch _The Beauty and the Beast_ with Ivy. She loves that movie.”

“And I get to squeeze myself beside you onto your tiny couch? I could live with that.” He couldn’t help the wicked grin stretching his lips, and Belle giggled, looking down again, and then his heart stopped for a moment when she sunk against him, wrapping her arms around his waist and tucking her head under his chin. But their embrace lasted only for a short time, and then she left again, after talking through the details for their movie night. As he looked after her, he knew that she didn’t want to wait only for Ivy to get used to the idea of him being around. No, she was putting him to the test, and she had every right to do so. After all, men were dangerous, and he had already shown that he was, too.


	13. Chapter 13

Ivy let her pencil wander over the paper, in circles, spirals, loops where she should do math and write down numbers. Her grandfather glanced at her from time to time while he stirred the pot with soup Mom had set up, and looked away again, pretending to have never looked at all. Ivy drew some leaves and flowers to her circles.

“Shouldn’t you, like, add numbers or something?”, her grandfather asked, and Ivy looked at her paper. She needed a new one, probably, because otherwise she would get scolded by her teacher.

“I know how to add, that’s first grade stuff. I have to multiply and divide.”

“Do you need help?”

“I’d like to know how to divide and conquer?” Somehow she had those words stuck in her head, and she didn’t know exactly where they came from. Moe crinkled his forehead and looked at the pot with soup, as if he liked to take it and pour it over his head to escape the tiny kitchen. Mom was running, which was why her grandfather was with her, but he looked as if he would rather be anywhere but here.

“I think I can’t help you with that.” Moe scratched his head, and Ivy shrugged. She suspected that she was better at math than her grandfather, so she was probably better at a lot of things, because old men who couldn’t do fourth grade figures were probably not very good at other things either. He turned away and stirred the soup once more, and Ivy took a new paper and started to write down the numbers once again. But they started to dance around before her eyes and formed flowers and snails, and after a while in which she just stared at the paper and chewed on her pencil, she watched her grandfather again. “Moe?”, she asked, and his head jerked up, as if he had been on the way of falling asleep.

“Huh?”

“Do you know Mr. Gold?”

“Well, everyone does, sweetie. He’s almost everyone’s landlord.”

“Do you think he’s nice?”

Moe frowned, and looked down at the soup, as if that knew more than him. “Well, I never thought about it, but generally it’s best to avoid him. Why do you ask?”

“Mom said he’s coming over for a movie night later.”

Moe coughed, choked, and sputtered, and Ivy was afraid he would faint, because he looked for a moment as if he couldn’t breathe. At last he managed to stop coughing, and stared at her out of a face as red as her wellies. “Why would he do that?”

“He wants to get to know me, he says.”

Moe’s face, so red only moments before, drained of colour, and Ivy wondered if that waxen white was the same white like that of a corpse. She had never seen a real corpse, but from time to time, she had been on film sets with Greg, and there, corpses were almost always looking as white as candles. “Why, in god’s name?”

Ivy wanted to answer, but there was a ring at the door, and she darted from her place on the kitchen table and into the hallway, not waiting until Moe had followed her before she opened the door. There on the porch stood Mr. Gold, with a plastic bag in his hand and a smile on his face.

“Hi, Ivy”, he said, tilting his head, and Ivy thought that his eyes weren’t even that cold and dark.

“Hi, Rowen.”

“Am I too soon?”

It was then that Moe reached the door, grunting and panting, and Ivy looked from her grandfather to Mr. Gold. “Mom is still running”, she said. Mr. Gold looked no longer at her, but at her grandfather, and Ivy bit her lip, because Moe looked furious. She wondered if it had been wrong of her to open the door.

“Gold.”

“Mr. French. I didn’t expect you here.”

“I can say the same of you. What is it you want of my girls?”

Mr. Gold narrowed his eyes, and Ivy wanted to hide behind her grandfather. It had been wrong to open the door, and now she wished she hadn’t done it.

“Belle invited me for a movie night.” Mr. Gold lifted the plastic bag in his hand, and it made a crackling sound, like that of a bag of chips.

“She didn’t say anything about that to me.” Moe blocked the door with his hulking body, and Mr. Gold pressed his lips into a thin line. Ivy wished her mom were already back.

“So are you going to block the door until she’s back from running?”

“Probably”, Moe grunted, and Mr. Gold raised his eyebrows. It was then that a burnt smell reached Ivy, and she tugged at Moe’s sleeve.

“Grandpa, the soup…”

Without another word, Moe banged the door shut and stormed off into the kitchen, and Ivy heard him curse, while she looked at the closed door and contemplated what she was supposed to do now. Mom had been already late when she went for her run, but she’d said that she needed to get rid of the tension. Ivy had no idea when she would be back. And somehow, leaving Mr. Gold standing outside on the porch made her stomach hurt a little. She bit her lip and watched the door to the kitchen, but Moe didn’t come back. No sound came from outside, and maybe Mr. Gold had just left again? Carefully, and with her heart fluttering like a bird caught inside her chest and flying against the walls, she opened the door to peek outside. Mr. Gold had his back to the door and looked out onto the street. Ivy slipped out the door, without making a sound, like a mouse, and stepped to his side. He had his hands folded over his cane, and somehow, there was a smile lingering on his lips, a little crooked, but Ivy could see it.

“Hey. Shouldn’t you wait inside?”, he asked, without looking at her, and Ivy shrugged.

“I don’t want to go back into the kitchen now that Moe burnt the soup. It stinks.”

“I’m deeply sorry for that.”

Ivy cocked her head and crinkled her nose. “Are you good at math?”, she asked, and thought about her sheets of paper filled with circles and lines and flowers. Numbers were beautiful, but often it seemed dull to her to treat them like her teacher wanted her to. She rather grouped them together with other pretty numbers.

“I am quite good at it, yes.” He rubbed the big ring on his finger, and Ivy’s eyes were drawn to the pale stone, and the handle of his cane. She wondered if it was made of real gold.

“Why do you walk with a cane?”

Mr. Gold turned his head and looked at her, and Ivy met his eyes. He had big eyes, like a sad dog. “I had an accident when I was younger. My right leg is a little shorter than my left since then, and sometimes it hurts. The cane helps me with walking.”

“Oh. It’s a pretty cane.” Ivy started to bob up and down on her toes, and Mr. Gold flexed his hands and looked down at his cane.

“It is. So, how are your dance classes?”

“They’re ok. Sometimes I turn into the wrong direction, and they laugh at me, but Jefferson says they have to stop and that it’s mean.”

Again Mr. Gold rubbed his ring, and he licked his lips. Ivy didn’t like tongues, so she looked away. But she looked back when he asked: “Can I let you in on a little secret?”

“Sure.”

“You see, I sometimes have difficulties to discern left and right. I wear this ring, so that I always know where my right side is.”

“Oh.” Now she found the ring even more interesting, and she wondered if a ring would help her, too. Just then, she heard footfalls. It was Mom, still running, and Ivy watched her coming closer, sweating and panting, until she reached the porch. Mr. Gold cocked his head and watched as Mom slowed down and started to walk back and forth on the path leading to the house.

“You’re too soon”, Mom gasped out between heavy breaths.

“I am aware of that.”

“Why aren’t you two inside?”

“Grandpa didn’t let him inside”, Ivy said, and Mom froze and paled.

“Crap.” Mom took the steps up the porch and pushed past Ivy and Mr. Gold. “Sweetie, stay here with Rowen for a moment, will you? I have to have a word with Dad… Grandpa.”

Mr. Gold frowned at Mom, who slipped inside and closed the door, and Ivy wondered if he knew what was wrong.

“What’s in the bag?”, she asked, when Mr. Gold didn’t look away from the door, as if he hoped to look right through it.

“Chips. I thought that a movie night requires junk food.”

“Do you know The Beauty and the Beast?” There was a sound from inside, a clunking, and Ivy heard her grandfather yell something. Maybe he had thrown over the pot with burnt soup and hurt himself. The idea made her a little queasy, and without wanting to, she stepped closer to Mr. Gold. He placed the hand with his ring on her shoulder, and squeezed a little, and when she looked up, his forehead was wrinkled.

“Let’s walk a little, and you can tell me everything I need to know about the movie, yes?”

They had just reached the street when the entrance door flew open once more and Moe stormed out, and to his car, without so much as looking at them. Mom had followed him to the door and looked after him, and she looked as if she was about to cry. Ivy ran back to her mother, and wrapped her arms around her waist. Mr. Gold followed her more slowly, and she heard the tap of his cane when he came up the porch.

“Care to tell me what this was about?”

“No.” Mom wrapped her arms around Ivy and held her for a moment. Then she sighed. “I guess today we’ll have burnt soup for dinner.”

“Just order takeout. It’s on me.” Mr. Gold slowly followed them inside, closing the door and placing his plastic bag on the bench in the hallway before he took off his blazer. Mom frowned at him, but Ivy thought that it was a brilliant idea.

“Well, then order something, while I take a shower. Ivy, are you done with homework?”

Ivy shook her head, but before Mom could start to scold her, Mr. Gold chipped in. “Take your shower. We’ll manage”, he said, and Ivy tried to think of a reason why Mom couldn’t take her shower now. Not a single thing came to her mind. Doing her homework with him watching her would be even worse than with her grandfather there, she was sure of it. He pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table, and patted the table where her papers and books still were scattered, and Ivy had no other choice but sitting down and taking up her pencil once more. This time, she concentrated hard, to have it over with as fast as possible. Mr. Gold watched her in silence, and she was sure he would see it if she did something wrong. She forced the circles and flowers to stay inside her, not to spill over, and she was done before Mom came back from her shower. Mr. Gold just sat there and smiled, calm and almost as still as a marble statue. He asked for her help with ordering food (because, as he said, she probably knew better what her mother wanted to eat), and then she had to tell him what The Beauty and the Beast was about. She was just telling him everything about the enchanted castle of the Beast when Mom came down again, her hair still a little wet from the shower.

“I think the best would be if we eat on the couch while we watch the movie”, Mom said, and Mr. Gold looked as if she wanted them to eat from the floor. “Don’t look like that, Rowen, it won’t harm you to eat out of a cardboard box on the couch.”

“Do you never eat on the couch?”, Ivy asked, and Mr. Gold made a face as if he had a tooth-ache.

“No. That’s so…” He trailed off, and her mom giggled, as if he had said something funny. Maybe it was his face.

“You’ll like it”, Mom said, and he looked at Ivy as if he hoped for her to help him. But he stopped protesting, and all three of them squeezed onto the couch after the food arrived. When they were finished eating, Mom, who sat in the middle, put her arm around Ivy, and they snuggled while the Beast saved Belle in the movie from the wolves, and gave her a library. After a while, Ivy noticed that Mr. Gold had put his arm around Mom, resting his hand on her waist, and he almost touched her, too. And Mom didn’t protest. Instead she sunk against him and pulled Ivy with her, until it got uncomfortable and too warm and Mom’s sweater scratched her cheek, and his hand was too close to her. Ivy wriggled out of her mother’s embrace.

She didn’t like that Mr. Gold was holding her mother like that, that he was holding her as if he had the right to do so, and Mom looked even as if she liked it. Ivy couldn’t concentrate on the movie anymore, and something made her chest tight when she saw, out of the corner of her eyes, that Mr. Gold kissed her mother’s hair, and his hand moved to her mother’s hip to pet her. Ivy squirmed on the couch, fidgeted, and tried to pull her mom towards her. Mr. Gold took his arm away. He said nothing, and neither did her mom, and they both straightened and tried to sit as upright as possible, skidding away as far from each other as the couch allowed. Ivy snuggled into her mother’s arm again and didn’t say another thing, until the movie was over, and Mom sent her upstairs to get ready for bed, so she and Mr. Gold could tuck her in.

“Are you going to come over to say goodnight every day now?”, Ivy asked him, and he looked at her mom, quickly, before he looked back at her.

“Would you want me to?”

“No.” It spilled over her lips before she could even think about it, and the smile that had been there all evening fell from his face. Somehow that made her a little sad. He had been nice to her, but that didn’t mean that she was ready to forget how he had shaken her mother in his shop. Mom said it had been because he hadn’t known about her and was in shock. Now he was paying for her dance classes and spent entirely too much time with them, and Mom looked at him as if she was forgetting herself. Her eyes always lost a little of their focus, and she looked at Mr. Gold like Amber’s ferret used to look at treats. It made Ivy uncomfortable. If Mom forgot herself, she would forget about Ivy, too. It happened sometimes when she read a book. She got swallowed, and resurfaced days later, with bleary eyes and sometimes unaware of what day it was.

“Well, if you change your mind, all you need to do is say it. I’ll be here.” Mr. Gold patted Crocky on the head, and left her room with Mom, and Ivy lay in the darkness and tried to sleep. But she knew that he was still there, still in the house, and the idea that he was maybe sitting on the couch again, and holding her mother in his arms, made her eyes sting.


	14. Chapter 14

Rowen loosened his tie on the way down the stairs, after tucking Ivy in, but it was still hard to breathe. It had been like that from the moment on when he realized, outside on the porch, that she had exactly the same difficulties with sorting left and right that he had. Up to that moment, she had been something foreign and strange, someone he knew he was supposed to connect with, and wanted to, but somehow failed to do so. But realizing something as little as that, a similarity in experiencing the world, opened his eyes. And his heart. He had been almost unable to speak with that sudden feeling of bursting, of expanding and growing, like a tree that sought to reach the sky with its branches and fell into some kind of stupor when it suddenly happened, and the sky embraced it and enclosed it and touched every cell inside and out. He was still a little stunned by that feeling as he watched Belle picking up the empty boxes of their food in the living room to carry them into the kitchen. She smiled at his tie as she wanted to pass him, and out of a sudden longing aching under his breastbone, he held her back, clasping her arms, and pressed a kiss to her lips, crushing the paper boxes between them.

“That was a wonderful movie night”, he said, after letting go of her, and her smile widened.

“See, eating on the couch isn’t that bad.”

“Seems like it.” He followed her into the kitchen, and his lower belly tensed when she bent down and tossed the paper boxes into the bin under her sink. Sitting beside her, having her so close, breathing her in and feeling her heart flutter under her skin had him on edge all evening.

“Well, the times when you could have me take off my clothes and seat me at your table for dinner are over.” She turned around and leant against the sink, and narrowed her eyes as the memory hit him with full force. He had indeed once made her undress, and sit at his dining room table bare and exposed, while he sat opposite her fully clothed and watched her over a fancy meal that he couldn’t recall for the life of him. For dessert, he had eaten her out, spread her out on his table to sit between her legs and thoroughly devour her, until she came with his name on her lips. He had kissed her then, with her juices on his lips and her taste still on his tongue, and had taught her how to reciprocate. He loosened his tie some more, because the memory had his blood boiling and his cock straining. He tried to adjust himself unobtrusively, but for once, Belle didn’t take her eyes off him. As if she knew what that little allusion to the past would do to him, and basked in it.

“I thought we weren’t taking this to the next level”, he rasped, and Belle tilted her head.

“And we don’t. But you look a little heated. Is something wrong?”

Rowen stepped a little closer, desperate to press himself to her and rub against her like a cat, or a dog humping her leg, but he didn’t dare to close the gap completely. Her gaze fell down to his pants, tenting with the prominent proof of his desire, and his skin grew even tighter, prickling under her scrutiny. She had never looked at him like that, not of her own volition. He had often relished her shame at his undisguised gaze, revelled in the things he could do to her just by looking and making her look. It was somewhat of a shock to find her unfazed by that now, as if his gaze had lost its power. Instead, his throat grew tight and his skin heated, embarrassed by the weakness of his flesh. Belle curled her hands around the edge of the sink, and the air around them drained of oxygen, while he fought the desire to shed his skin and melt into her, and he turned a little and tried to hide the effect she had on him.

“Are you hard?”, she asked him, as if it wasn’t obvious, and he almost choked.

“Like a rock.”

“Good. Don’t touch yourself.” She still looked at his crotch, making him even harder, and it took him a moment to grasp the meaning of her words. When it finally sunk in, his insides reacted to her order with releasing a stream of heat from the base of his spine into his lower abdomen, making his balls draw up and his cock twitch. He had not thought about touching himself up to that moment, but now he desperately wanted to, at the same time that he wanted to bend her over the sink and have his way with her. He had to clench his teeth and count to ten to get a grip on his galloping mind, torturing him with memories and fantasies alike. He wondered if she felt like that when he used his power to make her do things that tinted her skin with embarrassment. It was then, when he observed his sudden craving to have her tell him exactly what to do, realizing that she had never turned things around on him like that, that he realized something else, and it washed the tension out of his system.

“Belle, what happened earlier, with your father?”

“You didn’t forget about that, huh?”

“Did you just try to make me forget?”

“It almost worked, didn’t it?”

She was right, and he wondered if she had used his hunger for her to distract him. “Belle… I want this to work. I want us to talk about things, not try to cover them up.”

“I’ve never told Dad about us.” Her gaze lost its focus, as if he swam out of her vision, as if now that she had to talk it became once again impossible to look at him.

“So he didn’t know who Ivy’s father was? All these years?”

“He kind of just assumed it’s Greg, and I never corrected him. But I had to tell him today, because he… he didn’t want me to get involved with you. So I told him.”

“I assume he didn’t like it.” The words clicked on his tongue, and a sad smile flitted over her face.

“Nope. He didn’t.”

Now he crossed the distance, leaning his cane against the kitchen counter, and covered her hands on the edge of the sink with his. They seemed tiny in his grip, and his heart clenched when he compared his huge paws to her delicate bones, while he restrained her wrists against the edge of the sink. Belle bent her head, and she fit perfectly into the hollow between his jaw and shoulder. “Anything I can do to help?” The words rumbled in his chest, a low murmur meant to soothe her, like a soft caress, and he felt her sigh against his throat.

“I don’t think so. Just hold me for a while.”

Leaning against her, Rowen wrapped his arms around her, and Belle did the same. “Do you want me to stay tonight?”

Belle let out a laugh, a little too hard, and he almost flinched. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Rowen. It’s too soon.”

“I just meant to hold you.”

“I know. But I also know that I would let you do so much more than just hold me if you asked it of me. I’m not there yet.”

He didn’t know what to answer. He didn’t trust himself not to ask more of her, not to beg her to let him touch her, and kiss her, and do unspeakable things. The thought alone had him hard again, and Belle could feel it, judging by the way she grinded her hips against him. It was time to go.  

“Then I’ll see you for dinner tomorrow?”, he asked, when he trusted his voice enough not to shake, and Belle nodded. He stepped back, but just when he wanted to reach for his cane, Belle clasped his wrists, just like he had done only minutes before when he restrained her wrists against the sink, and held his hands still between them.

“I mean it, Rowen. Don’t touch yourself.”

He swallowed, tried to keep his breathing leveled, despite his heart racing in his chest. “Why?”

“Because I ask it of you. When I was a girl, you asked many things of me. Do you remember that one time when we ate together at Granny’s? We sat at the counter, with two seats between us, so no one would notice that we were there together. Do you remember what you asked of me before we went inside, me first, and you a few minutes later?”

Rowen closed his eyes and licked his lips. He did remember. “Yes.”

“Tell me.”

“I asked you to give me your panties.”

“Exactly. And did I give them to you?”

“Yes.”

“I was incredibly embarrassed. I was sure everyone would know just by looking at me. It had to be written over my forehead, over my chest, like a scarlet letter. But I knew that it made you happy to know that I was yours, and it made me happy to make you proud. Still, I was incredibly uncomfortable, because I was unable to refuse.”

“You could have said no.” He didn’t dare to look at her. Maybe she believed his lie when she didn’t see the truth in his eyes.

“No. No, I couldn’t. I was powerless to refuse you, just like I was powerless to stay when you wanted me to go. I don’t want to feel like that ever again. You always enjoyed the power you have over other people, and you treated me just the same as everyone else by exacting things from me that humbled me. This afternoon, you said you want to leave the Belle of the past out of it, but the truth is, I can’t. I don’t want to be like her anymore. That’s why I have to remember.”

“I understand.” And he did. It was Belle of the past that made Belle of the present strong, even though he had not seen it at first, and it was what enabled her to raise her chin and demand the respect he had denied her when she was first with him.

“So, will you do as I ask of you?”

“If it makes you happy.” If she asked of him to burn in the flame of his own desire, to starve for release until she allowed it, then he would do his best to give her exactly what she wanted. Her kiss was like a reward, and if he had to sleep on his stomach to give himself just a little friction, just enough to soothe the itch in his veins that made him feel as if he was bedded in a nest of stinging nettles, then it was something he was willing to accept. She would never know if he really did her bidding, would never know if he lied to her or not, but he would know. And this time, he wanted to be worthy of her. And of the daughter he had.

He was itching all day on Tuesday, and he used every chance he got while they prepared dinner in the evening to get body contact with Belle. He brushed past her too close when he stepped to the sink to wash vegetables, and he took more time than necessary to step out of the way when she needed to reach for the plates in the cupboard behind him, everything just to feel her, to be close to her without being too obvious. Ivy watched him out of narrowed eyes, and his skin warmed under her scrutiny. He refrained from kissing Belle in front of their daughter, and he didn’t stay for long after they brought the girl to bed.

“Maybe we should give her a break tomorrow”, Belle suggested, and although his heart grew heavy, he agreed. Ivy needed to breathe, needed space as much as he needed contact. He could wait. “Maybe you could go to dance class with her on Thursday… Then I’d be able to run in that time.”

Rowen nodded, and he hardly slept from Wednesday to Thursday. It was such a small thing, yet it meant the world to him that Belle trusted him to spent some time alone with his daughter. Of course, Ivy disagreed, and she grimaced when he came to the flower shop to pick her up for her dance class.

“I have a little something for you”, he said, and for a moment, her face lit up. Then she furrowed her perfectly shaped eyebrows and tilted her head as he took a little box out of the pocket of his blazer and opened it. “Stretch out your right hand”, he said, and Ivy bit her lip as she did so, watching him out of dark eyes. Rowen did his best not to touch her with anything but his dry fingertips as he clasped the narrow, golden bracelet with the small enamel pendant around her wrist. A pink rose was painted on pigeon blue ground, a dainty ornament telling tales of another time. Ivy looked at it, her eyes shining, and he could see how hard she tried not to let on that she liked his present. “It’s so that you always know where your right side is. The side with the rose bracelet.”

“Thank you, Rowen”, she murmured, and he very much liked to kiss her forehead. He didn’t, but he smiled at her, and she smiled back, shy and quivering, but undeniably a smile. He wasn’t prepared for what awaited him when he entered Jefferson’s studio, carrying Ivy’s little rucksack with her dancing shoes, and the room fell silent at his entrance, the faces of entirely too many mothers turning towards him and freezing over in something that could very well be terror. Jefferson greeted him with a broad smile and a wink, but he still noticed how Ivy seemed to shrink at the sudden silence, how her face turned ashen and her eyes burnt with a familiar rage. It was the first time he made a public appearance as a father, the first time he openly accompanied his daughter, and he could see how distrust and curiosity fought on the faces of too many people he used to threaten on a regular basis. Ivy wasn’t the only one vulnerable to their judgment. When he sat down, there seemed to appear an empty chair on either side of him, and he acted as if he didn’t notice. Ivy retreated to the far end corner, whispering with Grace while they changed into their dancing shoes, and he sent her a smile when she looked over at him. This time, she didn’t smile back.

She was one of the smallest girls, as fragile as her mother, and just as graceful, but still he could see her struggles, and could see that she had always just that deciding one misstep more than the others, the one that singled her out and set her apart. He loved her all the more for it, and his heart ached for her. She looked to the floor when the class ended, and Rowen had to bite his tongue not to snarl at the mother of one of the other girls when she smiled at Ivy and said with a voice as false as her smile what a brave little girl she was for trying so hard.

“I need to go to the bathroom”, Ivy murmured, after changing into her sneakers again, and Rowen thought nothing of it when she took Grace’s hand and pulled the other girl out of the room with her. Only when they didn’t come back, not even after all of the other parents had left with their children, and Rowen and Jefferson were the only ones left (and Rowen probably was the reason why the room emptied faster than ever, as Jefferson joked), and Ivy and Grace were still gone, their fathers went to look for them. The bathroom was empty, and the girls were gone.


	15. Chapter 15

Belle was still unsure about whether it was the right thing to give Rowen another chance. Or, rather, give herself another chance with Rowen. Still unsure if she would be capable to stand her ground this time. So far, her attempts at setting clear boundaries had, on one hand, shown success; he respected her No, respected when she told him that she didn’t want to take this to the next level just yet. On the other hand, when she had shown him her tattoos on Sunday evening, he still spoke to her like he always had: Demanding. _Come here. Sit. Be my pet, my good girl_. Not that he had said that. But that was how it felt, and Belle hated it. She hated to feel weak, mostly because she knew she was weak. She was fighting herself just as much as she was fighting him.

When he asked her, though, on Monday, if they could try again… She couldn’t say no to that. Maybe if she didn’t love him anymore, if she wasn’t the slightest bit attracted to him, if his raspy voice wouldn’t do things to her she didn’t want to think about – maybe then she would have been able to refuse. But the truth was that she wanted to sink into his arms, and wanted to allow him to hold her, to care for her. She had to think of Ivy though. Ivy, who was more than irritated about the amount of time they had spent with Rowen over the last few days. Ivy, who couldn’t bear to see her snuggle with Rowen while they watched The Beauty and the Beast. And then there was the bitter experience of the last time she had allowed a man to care for her, keeping her from letting her guard down now. She had a lot of running to do to keep her anxiety in check. Not that she accomplished a lot with it, other than being just a tiny bit more… firm. More able to say no. She needed those endorphins to push her forward.

The endorphins also tried to push her into his arms. Belle gritted her teeth. Tried to outrun her memories, only to arrive right where she left off; tried to forget how weak she had been when she was first with him, how easy it had been to succumb to his well spoken wishes, only to find herself giving in again, ready to do his bidding. Maybe giving this relationship another try was the wrong thing to do. She told herself that she would just take off and leave Storybrooke, over night if she had to, if anything went wrong. She held her breath and waited for the inevitable moment when it would happen. Maybe that was the difference this time. When she had been young, only a girl, trust had come so easily. She had trusted Rowen, trusted him to keep her safe and care for her, until he pushed her out into the world and told her not to call. This time, she didn’t trust him, and she was convinced it was for the better like that. Sadly, her heart and her loins didn’t listen to reason, and didn’t care for trust.

When Rowen took Ivy to her dance class, she tried to outrun the vortex of longing, distrust and doubt about her own sanity once again. She trusted herself even less than she trusted Rowen, and the constant brimming of fear beneath her breastbone made her wish everything would just stop. She wished she could ignore life, ignore responsibility, ignore conscience, ignore the absolute certainty of being a failure. She ran too fast, like she always did, ran until her lungs burnt and the sound of her panting drowned out the sounds of the world around her, until her gasps resembled sobs and her vision swam. She reached home with the last bit of her strength, just in the nick of time before she would collapse, her muscles dissolving into a state of ooziness akin to jelly, unable to take another step. Her mind was still racing when she crashed down onto the steps leading up to her porch, her head between her knees, her lungs screaming as if she was breathing fire. She was late again. No time left to shower before Rowen would drop off Ivy. Belle decided to just sit on the porch until they would come home, too exhausted to drag herself inside.

After a while, when the sky already began to turn gray, and she started to shiver with her sweat freezing on her skin, she hugged herself and contemplated to go inside. Maybe Rowen had taken Ivy out for ice cream, or hot cocoa. Maybe they were bonding, without her getting in the way. Maybe Ivy would fall for his charms just like she had done. Belle didn’t like to look at that part of her, the part that was powerless to resist Rowen and his gentle voice, his smile, that part of her that turned weak and wet when he looked at her out of dark, smoldering eyes. She knew that he had the power to charm Ivy, or any woman. She never understood why he chose to be alone for so long. All it took him to make her melt was a smile, a flash of his teeth, a soft brush of his fingertips to turn her into a disgusting puddle. It had always been like that. Before she kissed him for the first time, in his house, she had delivered flowers to him for months, and he had played her like a fine-tuned instrument, following her around his house, always keeping her on edge, sometimes snarling at her, but always with that fond look in his eyes. He never would have taken that first step, despite having been head over heels for her, as he told her later. It always had been her decision. That first step, anyways. Like sundew, he lured her in with sugarcoated words, with sad puppy eyes and adorable insecurity, until she was caught by sticky tentacles and unable to move. It’s your choice to crawl into my jaws, but then you’ll get devoured, slowly disintegrated and picked apart. How stupid of her, to make that same mistake twice.

Belle shivered again, pulled her knees up to her chest and stared into the darkness that slowly crawled over the sky, the night in its wake. Rowen and Ivy should be long back by now. Just when she pulled herself up to her feet to go inside, his Cadillac pulled up on the street in front of her house and parked. Belle waited for them to get out of the car, and it took her a moment to realize that there was just Rowen in it. He was staring at the steering wheel, unmoving. The cold turned into ice, and for a moment, Belle hoped she just had not seen it right, hoped that Ivy was just slumped so deep into the seat that she was invisible. Then Rowen got out of the car, his movements slow and heavy, as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. Ivy was still hiding. Or maybe she had fallen asleep on the backseat. Rowen pushed the driver side door shut, and it echoed through the twilight. He would wake Ivy up with that noise. He didn’t look at her when he came up the path, fixed his eyes on the ground and leaned heavily on his cane.

“Rowen?” _Please tell me she’s just asleep on the backseat. Tell me she wants to play a trick on me_.

“Belle… I’m sorry…”

“You don’t need to apologize just for being a little late. She’s asleep, isn’t she?”

Rowen stared at her, gaping, blinking, shifting on his feet. Looked up at her and licked his lips. “Ivy and Grace sneaked out of the dance studio and took off.”

Rowen and Ivy had bonded more than she had anticipated if he was already helping her with playing tricks. But this was a cruel joke, and she couldn’t laugh. “That’s not funny, Rowen.” Belle took the steps down the porch and wanted to walk past him to go to the car. Pull Ivy out of the backseat. Scold her. Rowen extended a hand and held her back.

“I’m not making fun of you. They ran off.”

“Stop lying to me.” Belle scowled at his hand on her arm, and he let go of her.

“I’m not lying. I wish I was. Jefferson and I looked for them all over Storybrooke, at the beach, the playground in the woods. I even went to the Greyhound station. The girls tried to get tickets to Boston, but they were clever enough not to let them onto the bus. I called it in with Sheriff Swan.”

“And you’re telling me this only now? Why didn’t you call me right away?” Belle stepped back, away. Tried to keep her voice leveled, tried not to shout, and yet, failed. Rowen looked her up and down, a cool, heartless sweep over her disheveled figure, and he raised a brow when his eyes returned to her face.

“I did. You weren’t at home, and not at the flower shop. I suppose you’ve been running.”

Belle bit her lip, looked down. Right. She had been running, trying to leave her problems behind, the emotional turmoil, the doubts, the fear. Well, there was no use in running any longer now. She couldn’t forgive a man who lost her child. “Leave”, she said, but Rowen just rolled his eyes.

“Don’t be irrational, Belle. I just came to pick you up, so we can continue looking for them. Jefferson’s still out there. As is Sheriff Swan. We’ll find them, don’t worry.” He reached for her arm again, but Belle shook him off. She couldn’t abide his touch now. He followed her slowly when she stalked to his car, and didn’t talk until they both were buckled up, and the motor running. Belle didn’t look at him.

“I’m really sorry, Belle. She said she’s going to the bathroom. She never came back.”

“She wanted a ticket to Boston?” Belle didn’t even listen to his apologies. She didn’t need apologies. All she needed was for her daughter to be safe. She ignored the glance he sent her, frowning slightly, as if he had a reason to be irritated. His life wouldn’t change if Ivy wasn’t in it any longer. He would just go on as before. All of a sudden, she couldn’t breathe anymore, and the car seemed to shrink and press the air out of her lungs. Panic, a distant, clinical part of her brain told her. _You’re having a panic attack_. She refused to believe it.

“Yes. Maybe she wants to get to LA from there.”

“I just hope she didn’t climb into the car of some random stranger.” Belle tried to sound calm, but her voice shook, and she leant forward and stuck her head between her knees, somewhat awkward in the tight space of the car. Rowen didn’t say anything.

They reached Jefferson’s house.

“Don’t panic”, was the first thing Jefferson said to her, and Belle wished that was as easy as he made it sound. It was fully dark by now, and the prospect of her baby being alone somewhere in the dark scared her to death.

“Did you call them?”, she asked, and Rowen and Jefferson looked at her as if she was dumb for even asking.

“Went straight to voicemail.”

“I’m going to kill her. I’ll find her, and then I’ll kill her.” Belle was trembling violently now, just as much from fear as from the cold and the rage. Ivy would be grounded till her eighteenth birthday. Make it twenty-one. Rowen placed his hand on her shoulder, squeezed gently. She shook him off again, shivering. She should have showered and changed, but now it was too late. They decided to go to the beach again, then into the woods. Sheriff Swan was looking in town, patrolling in her car. Belle called her father, who went out to search the streets by foot. It started to rain, a cold drizzle, and after a while, they were all soaked to the skin. They drove to Rowen’s cabin around midnight, but it was empty, abandoned. The girls were nowhere to be found.

“We’re going to find them”, Rowen repeated, but after a while, it sounded as if he didn’t believe it anymore. Belle was swaying on her feet, certain that she would have to lay down in a pyre if she ever wanted to get warm again. She saw her little girl already dead, disposed in some ditch at the side of the road, and the fear choking her was so overwhelming that she couldn’t process at first when they finally found the girls, curled up and trembling in fear under the toll bridge. Belle was ready to slap Ivy, ready to shake what little life was left out of her. She did neither. Unable to react, and not knowing the best way to handle the situation, she just stared at them as Jefferson and Rowen pulled the girls out from under that bridge, both pale, shaking, and small. Ivy fixed her eyes on the rocks and pebbles on the riverbank, and pressed her rucksack to her chest.

“What on earth were you thinking?”, Belle whispered, before she pulled her daughter into a fierce hug, determined to never let her out of sight again. Rowen called Sheriff Swan while Jefferson was smothering Grace, and the Sheriff picked them up and drove them back home, dropping Jefferson, Grace and Rowen off at Jefferson’s. Belle was glad that Rowen had to get his car, glad she had a moment alone with Ivy, without his observation, after Sheriff Swan went inside with them and gave Ivy a stern sermon. Ivy didn’t cry. Not yet, at any rate.

“You are grounded for the rest of this century”, Belle told Ivy, when she brought her to bed, and although that meant that she would be grounded for 92 years, Ivy didn’t protest.

“I’m so sorry, Mom. I was so scared.” Ivy wrapped her arms around Belle’s neck and refused to let go, and Belle swallowed a sob.

“I know. We’re going to talk about it in the morning.”

She just left Ivy’s room when there was a knock at the front door, and Belle hugged herself when she went down to open the door. Rowen looked as if he was about to break, brittle and strained, and, above all, furious.

“How are we going to handle this?”, he asked, crossing the threshold, and Belle was momentarily dumbfounded. And too tired. She was still in her workout clothes, still cold, and reeking, her joints stiff and her muscles numb.

“We?”, she asked, despite knowing that this was a fight she didn’t want to fight now.

“Yes, we. I’m the one she left standing, I’m the one she ran away from. And she’s just as much my daughter as she’s yours.” He paced her living room, and Belle remained standing in the door, watching him, with her arms crossed and her shoulders drawn up to her ears.

“No, she’s not. Getting to know her, and getting a say in parenting, in the way I’m raising her, are two different things. She’s going to suffer the consequences of her actions, but this has nothing to do with you.”

Rowen frowned, squared his jaws. Gripped his cane tighter and planted it in front of him. “This has everything to do with me. I’m the reason she ran away.”

“You don’t know that. And even if that’s the case, it’s still me who determines the consequences.” Belle tried to square her shoulders, tried to grow, to raise her chin, but she was too cold, too exhausted, and she swayed a little to lean against the doorframe. Rowen tilted his head, and there was a twitch beneath his eye.

“Do you think you have to protect her from me?”, he asked, and his voice chilled her to the bone.

“Yes.”  

“I see.” He looked down, flexed his hands. Belle shuddered, and hugged herself a little tighter.

“It’s late, Rowen. I’ll talk to her tomorrow, and then I’ll call you…” Belle stepped aside, hoping he would take the hint and leave, but he didn’t move.

Belle wanted to be held, and hugged, and comforted. But she knew that this wasn’t something she would get for free. She looked down, and rubbed her arms. She was too tired to fight off the cold, and she started shaking.

“May I hold you? You’re freezing.” Rowen didn’t move, waited for her to consent, and maybe that was what made her give in. She nodded, without looking at him, and held her breath when he stepped closer and wrapped his arms around her. “You’re ice cold, darling. You need to get out of these flimsy clothes and into something warm. Do you have a flannel pajama?”

Belle almost snorted, and pressed her face against the crook of his neck as he rubbed her back and pressed her to his chest. “No, I don’t have flannel pajamas. But I have pullovers and sweat pants.”

“Sounds good enough to me. Let’s get you into bed.”

Belle didn’t find it in her to protest, even though she still felt unbalanced, slightly uneasy with him there. But his warmth seeped through her thin clothes, into her bones, and she allowed herself, just this once, to be weak-willed, to give in to the temptation and let him care for her. With one hand on the small of her back, he followed her upstairs, into her bedroom, and he guided her to her bed and made her sit down. Belle let it happen, and she clawed her hands into the bed covers when he leant his cane against her nightstand and went down onto his knees to pull her socks from her feet. Belle just looked down at him as he rubbed her feet, and she rolled her toes as she realized how cold they were.

“You don’t need to do this”, she whispered.

“I know. But I want to. Here, let me help you with that.” He gestured for her running tights, and Belle lifted her bottom off the bed so he could roll them down. He tossed them aside and started rubbing her calves, up to the back of her knees, and her thighs. Belle held her breath when he detected the passion flower on the inside of her thigh, just below the juncture of her legs, and brushed his thumb over it, just for a second, before he looked up to lock eyes with her. “Let me help you with the shirt?”

Belle nodded, and let him pull her shirt over her head, leaving her in her underwear, and shaking more than ever. Rowen struggled back to his feet, a little clumsily without his cane, and turned away to open her wardrobe. Belle just watched him as he went through her clothes, pulling out her thickest pullover, sweatpants and a pair of knitted socks. Watched him as he went back down onto his knees and lifted first one of her feet, rolled a knitted sock over it, trying not to tickle her, then the same procedure with the other one.

“I can dress myself.”

“I know. Do you want to dress yourself?” Rowen paused after rolling up the second sock, one warm palm cupping her knee, the other one around her calf, his thumb rubbing circles on the inside of her leg, just below the knee.

“No. Carry on.”

He smiled, and her breath hitched when he bent forward and pressed a kiss to where his thumb had just been. But he didn’t linger. It was just a fleeting gesture of affection, not an attempt at seduction. Though Belle probably wouldn’t even have objected if it was seduction. Belle placed a hand on his shoulder when he proceeded to insert her feet into her sweatpants, and she allowed her fingertips to succumb to the softness of his hair and rake through it, just once, before she got to her feet so he could pull up her pants. Only when they were all the way up, she remembered that she still wore her sweaty underwear, and she bit her lip, blushed. Decided to say nothing. But before she let him help her into her pullover, she took off her sports bra, deciding not to care about her momentary nudity. He had already seen her, after all. When she was thoroughly wrapped in wool (and already felt the pullover itching on her skin), Rowen pulled back the covers and made her lie down, tucking the blankets tight around her.

“I’ll let myself out”, he said, bending down to kiss her forehead, and Belle grasped his tie. He was still wearing his full attire, his three piece armor, impeccable despite having wandered the woods on their search for Ivy, and no longer clammy from the rain earlier.

“Stay and hold me?” She didn’t look at him, locked eyes with his tie, and Rowen placed his fingertips under her chin to tilt her head up, to make her look at him.

“If you want me to, I’ll stay.”

Belle nodded, and averted her eyes when he swallowed, and sat down at the edge of her bed. There was a soft thump when he shucked off his shoes, one after the other, and a bright chink when he took off his cuff links, and sleeve garters, to place them on her nightstand, followed by his tie. After placing the waistcoat over the foot end of her bed, he paused, hands on the buckle of his belt, hesitated. Belle pressed her lips together, pulled the blanket up to her nose.

“Just the belt”, he rasped, and Belle nodded. It was almost obscene to watch him unbuckle his belt, pull the leather out of the belt loops of his pants, and her heart started pounding harder, faster. Rowen tossed the belt aside, and sat down again, rolling up his pant legs and taking off his sock garters. Only then did he stretch out at her side, slipping under the blanket with her and pulling her into his arms. Belle snuggled up to his chest, closing her eyes when her nose met his throat and she inhaled his scent. She didn’t want to admit that the warmth she felt came just as much from watching him taking off his clothes – the uncomfortable parts of it, anyway – as it came from being wrapped in wool and blankets and _him_. Rowen.

“Sleep, my heart”, he whispered into her hair, and despite the scratchy wool sweater and the gentle throb between her legs, she drifted off to sleep.


	16. Chapter 16

Belle moved, tried to push her pillow into a more comfortable shape, but it was hard and resisting and didn’t give way in the slightest. She shoved at it again, still refusing to leave the realms of sleep for good, but only when her pillow groaned and wriggled like a boa constrictor beneath her, she realized that her head was resting on someone’s arm, and her face was somehow squashed against it and lying in a cold and wet puddle of her own drool, soaked into the fabric that parted her skin from that of the arm. It was the feeling of her face lying in a puddle and the rest of her covered in itching perspiration that finally hauled her out of sleep, and she almost rolled off the bed when she shot up. It was the counterpart of the pillow arm, resting heavy on her waist and slipping down to her lower belly when she sat up, that kept her from falling out of bed. Still, the feeling of falling remained, and she stared at that big, dark hand that now rested close to her sex, splayed above the scar of the c-section. It added to the warmth, the heaviness, and although it pressed the scratchy wool sweater to her skin, it was somehow the only part of her body that didn’t feel uncomfortable. She shivered.

“You’re hot”, someone murmured into the pillows, and Belle turned and pushed the blanket down to look at Rowen’s face, crumpled, with his hair mussed.

“Thank you”, she mumbled, and he opened his eyes and lifted his head.

“No, I mean… you feel hot. Feverish.”

Belle shivered, and hugged herself, and Rowen struggled up to sit, lifting his hand from her stomach up to feel her forehead. Belle missed his touch instantly. He pulled her into an embrace, but her skin hurt and the cold seemed to increase. Her teeth chattered. A pale haze of light crept through the curtains, the first light of day, and it stung in her eyes and had her head almost exploding.

“I don’t feel well”, she whispered, and winced when Rowen rubbed over the nape of her neck.

“I can see that. You shouldn’t have spent the night out in the woods in those sweaty workout rags.”

The tone of his voice, somehow scolding and condescending, irritated her, and she tried to shrug out of his arms. The effort it would take her to wrestle free was too big, though, and so she settled for a scowl. “It’s not as if I had had a choice.”

“I know. I’m sorry, darling. Do you have a hot water bottle?” He talked to her like she would talk to Ivy when she was ill, and it only furthered her indignation.

“I can care for myself. You don’t need to treat me like a child.”

“I know that you can care for yourself. But I thought we’re trying to have a relationship here. I care about you and I’d like to care _for_ you.”

Belle wanted to argue, really, but somehow her mind was muddled and she wasn’t sure if her irritation wasn’t just coming from her skin hurting so much. “I have a hot water bottle in the bathroom… I can get it… I need to wake Ivy anyways…” She struggled to get out of bed once more, but Rowen held her, and instead of getting out of bed, he somehow made her lie down again and tucked the covers around her, immobilizing her.

“I’ll take care of that. You stay in bed.”

Any other day, Belle would have protested. She couldn’t let him wake Ivy. Her poor girl would get the shock of her life. And she didn’t want him rummaging around in her bathroom. Much too intimate, too invasive… She closed her eyes and hoped the world would just stop turning, time would freeze until she wasn’t hurting so much anymore and her head wouldn’t pound as if she was repeatedly knocking it against a concrete wall. She blinked when the mattress moved and Rowen left the bed, and she realized that he still wore the same clothes as the night before, now crumpled and untidy. It’s been a long time since she saw him in a state like this, disheveled and with bed hair (and she hated him a little bit for the fact that even his bed hair was free of tangles and more on the sexy side of untidy, not the kind of bed hair that was plastered on to weird places and sticking into weird directions, and then she hated herself for letting her mind obsess over Rowen’s bed hair). It was disquieting how hot she felt just from looking at him like this, mussed and robbed of his usual impeccable getup, and she allowed her eyes to fall shut again and decided that it was the fever that made her feel so heated. She shivered.

“I’ll be back in a minute.”

Belle tried to lift a hand, wanted to explain to him where to find the bathroom, before she remembered that he probably knew that. This was his house. He owned the place. He had to know where the bathroom was.

It took him more than a minute to come back, carrying a tray with a thermos and a cup, and a hot water bottle stuck under his arm.

“I made you tea.”

Belle almost cried. He made tea. When he placed the tray on her nightstand, handed her the hot water bottle and poured steaming tea into the cup, she cried after all, leaving him flustered and concerned.

“Darling, don’t cry, it’s just tea…”

If anything, that only made her cry harder, an she pulled the covers over her face to hide. Why did she never manage to be strong? Why did he always manage to have her at her weakest, most vulnerable?

“Why is Mom crying?”

Of course, Ivy had to wake up on her own for once in her life, and find her crying. And, even worse, find Rowen in her bedroom, with bed hair and what was for him to be considered hardly dressed.

“She has a fever, and I made her tea.”

“Oh.” The mattress sank in, and Belle peeked out from under the cover to find Ivy sitting next to her, her forehead crinkled in concern. “Mom, are you alright?”

Rowen sat down at the edge of her bed, close to Ivy, but her daughter didn’t even flinch, as if it was something natural. As if she wasn’t the least bit irritated that he was there at all.

“I guess your mom caught a cold when she was searching for you last night, in the rain and the cold.”

“So it’s my fault?”

Ivy sounded heartbroken, and Belle at once wanted to reassure her. “No!” she said, at the same time that Rowen said “Yes.”

“Rowen! It’s _not_ her fault.”

“But it is. And she should know that her actions have consequences.”

Belle bit the insides of her cheeks and tried to breathe. Willed him to understand that now was not the time for a fight. But there was the same stubborn scowl on his face that she knew only too well from her daughter. There was no way she could avoid that fight now. “Ivy, baby, please go and get ready for school. Don’t forget to brush your teeth.”

Ivy pouted. “I never forget to brush my teeth.”

“I know. You just choose not to do it.”

Belle waited until Ivy slinked out of her bedroom before she faced Rowen again. “What do you think you’re doing? I told you that I will deal with this.”  

“So I’m not even allowed to speak my mind? Will I ever be allowed to address problems, and discuss them, or am I supposed to just swallow everything? You are sick, and it is because our daughter ran off into the woods.”

Belle struggled upright, although every joint seemed to creak, every muscle sore and hurting. “If by discussing you mean that you are just going to decide and I have to go with it, then no. If by discussing you mean to speak with me _before_ you start accusing Ivy of being the root of all evil in the world, then I suppose we can talk about it.”

Rowen gaped at her. “What on earth is that supposed to mean? I never accused her of being the root of all evil! Who would do such a thing? She’s only a child, not a demon.”  

“Yes, she’s only a child. And I don’t want her growing up to feel guilty for every mistake she ever made. It’s my fault that I’m sick, not hers.”

Rowen closed his eyes for a moment and curled his hands into the bed sheets. “Alright. That’s a concept I can get behind. So, how do you want to address the issue? What are the consequences she’s going to face for running away?”

Belle fell back into the pillows, exhausted and weary to her bones. “She’s grounded for a month, has to hand over her Nintendo and will have to do the dishes for that month.”

“That’s all? Isn’t that a little… harmless?”

“She hates doing the dishes with a burning passion, and loves her Nintendo. I will allow you to confiscate it, if you want to. Also, these are not the Middle Ages, and there will be no spanking or other abominable things. If you ever lay a hand on her, you’ve seen her for the last time.”

“Belle. I never even thought of something like this.” His words sounded hoarse, raw, and Belle had difficulties to look at him, so hurt did he look.

“How would I know what you’re thinking of? I’m just stating the facts.”

“You could ask me. You could listen what I have to say. You could look at me.”

“Rowen, I would really like to do that. But right now, I need to find a way to get out of bed to get Ivy ready for school, and then I’ll have to go to work. I simply don’t have the capacities to deal with your bruised ego now.” Belle kicked the covers away and rolled to her side to get out of bed, swallowing the groan when a new wave of pain washed over her. There was no use in allowing herself to give in to it. She had to get up, had to function. She just hoped that her body would do her a favor and glide into a numb state, like a plush toy, fuzzy on the outside and stuffed with cotton wool inside, a grotesque contortion of reality. She nearly cried out when Rowen clasped her arm to hold her down.

“You’re in no condition to go anywhere. I’m here, I can take care of Ivy.”

Belle looked at his hand on her arm. The pressure pricked her skin like hot needles, a ringing pain that radiated up into her shoulder, and she knew he was right. Still, she didn’t want to be puny, vulnerable, didn’t want to give him this much responsibility. So much power. “I’ll manage…”

Rowen narrowed his eyes, and there was that twitch beneath his eye that always spoke of the struggle inside him, the pains it took him to constrain his temper. “Darling, there is no shame in admitting that you’re sick. I can see it. You’re burning up. And I promise I’m not going to say another word about yesterday, and I’m not going to burn down the house. Please let me take care of you.”

Belle couldn’t bear it any longer to look at him. The more he insisted she should allow him to care for her, the less she was able to. How was she supposed to hold her ground, to be strong, when he constantly coaxed her into being weak? “I’m fine”, she whispered, and he pulled back his hand. Belle felt immediately lighter, as if a weight was lifted from her.

“Alright. But please consider to call in a sick day. I’m sure your father will manage a day without you. The flower business is a rather wilting one these days.” He got to his feet, and started to put on all the parts of his clothing he had taken off the night before, meticulous and proficient, without looking at her, and Belle swallowed. Only after fastening his cufflinks, he turned back at her again, and there was no smile, not even a hint of it in his eyes. “Take care, dear. Call me when you feel better.” He didn’t bend down to kiss her, and he didn’t look back over his shoulder when he left her bedroom. Belle dragged herself out of bed, shaking with the cold despite her wool sweater and sweatpants, and when she leant against the doorframe of her bedroom, swaying and convinced she wouldn’t be able to take another step, she heard his low rumble when he talked to Ivy. She couldn’t make out his words, but she heard the final click of the entrance door when he left. The relief she hoped for didn’t come.

Despite not wanting to, she heeded his words and called her father. Of course Moe could spare her for a few days. It wasn’t as if he needed her help at all. Her job at the flower shop was nothing but courtesy, a subtle way for her father to indulge her illusions of independency. He didn’t say that (and Belle doubted he would be able to articulate it like this), but Belle wasn’t stupid. She barely managed to drive Ivy to school before she fell back into bed. She didn’t have anything to eat left, her fridge was empty (just as her purse and her bank account), but for the life of her, she couldn’t go shopping. Maybe they could live on tea for a few days. Maybe she would feel better when she had rested for a spell, slept through the morning, curled around that hot water bottle and just turned off her thoughts for a while. And somewhere in her kitchen, she had some rice or pasta left. Ivy wouldn’t starve. Not over the weekend, at least.

Around eleven, she called Jefferson and asked him if he would pick up Ivy from school and drop her off at home later, because she knew that getting back into the car was out of the question. And she didn’t want to ask Rowen. Ivy was in an extraordinarily bad mood when Jefferson dropped her off, mostly because she didn’t get to spend the rest of the day with Grace. And her mood plummeted when she had to hand over her Nintendo on top of that. For once Belle was glad for her ears feeling as they were growing radishes inside them, because it meant she heard only half of Ivy’s tirade. And she pretended to be deaf when Ivy complained about the rice pudding Belle whipped together. Her bed seemed like a piece of heaven when she finally crawled back, preferring the sting of the heavy blankets on her skin over the freezing cold without covers. But even after piling up a heap of fleece blankets, duvets and feather beds, she was still shaking and her teeth still chattering. Belle was too exhausted to hold back the tears.

The best thing about a cold was the moment when it was finally gone, and on Sunday evening, Belle was almost human again. Rowen hadn’t called once. Neither had Belle, and she gritted her teeth and continued not to call throughout the week. Rowen didn’t come for dinner on Tuesday. On Thursday, Belle had to admit to herself that their attempt to have a relationship again failed. She brought Ivy to dance class, the only activity she was allowed to outside of home, and continued to Rowen’s shop. He didn’t look up immediately when she entered, and that alone told Belle all she needed to know. They didn’t stand a chance. The tingling of the bell above the door faded away to become a pale remembrance of sound in the stuffy silence of his shop once more, and still he didn’t look up. Belle just stood in the middle of the sales room, between glass cases and dancing dust particles and a faint clinking of a chime of glass unicorns. Rowen scribbled away in his ledger, until Belle thought she wouldn’t bear the silence any longer, until she thought she’d burst if he wouldn’t look at her. Finally, he put his fountain pen down, placed his hands on the glass surface of the counter and looked up.

“You didn’t call.” It was not what Belle wanted to say, but it was what spilled over her lips, the wrong thing at the wrong time.

“You didn’t either.”

“I was ill.”

“Do you feel better now?”

The whole exchange was painfully superficial, felt like the fever on her skin, stinging and drilling into her bones like nails scraping over chalkboard. They were never meant to be together.

“Rowen… I don’t think we can make it work.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Belle hadn’t expected him to question her statement. It had to be obvious, even to him. “Because we don’t manage to talk. And when we talk, there is no communication. When I was sick and refused to give you what you wanted, you walked out and punished me with silence. How long did you plan to keep away? A week? A month?”

“I told you to call me when you feel better.”

 “Yes. You hoped I would cave in and admit that I need you and let you take care of everything. Well, I’ve got news for you. I don’t need you.” She turned, wanted to leave. His blank face was too painful to look at.

“I know that you don’t need me. But I hoped you would _want_ me.”

Belle paused, without turning back. Empty, hollow. She pressed her nails into her palms, hoped to create enough pain to feel anything at all. Rowen spoke to her back.

“You asked me what I wanted of you. Well, I know what I want. I want to be with you, I want to know you and my daughter, and I want to be allowed to care for you without you fearing I would chip away your independence with it. I want to be allowed to discuss things with you without you being afraid I would threaten your autonomy with it. But what is it _you_ want?”

Belle unclenched her hands, observed the faint pulse of pain where her nails had left marks inside her palms. “I don’t know.”

“And that’s exactly the problem, isn’t it? You expect me to know what I want so you don’t need to think about what it is you want of us. You don’t want me to treat you like a girl anymore, but you’re not ready to act like a woman.”

Belle whirled around, clenched her fists again. “That’s not true.”

“No? Then tell me: What do you want?”

Belle took a step towards the counter. “I told you. I don’t know.”

“Then it’s time for you to find out, don’t you think? Or are you so afraid that every little mistake of me is bound to make you run?” He leant heavy on the counter, leaning forward, a frown overshadowing his eyes. Belle wanted to leave, to go, and not come back. Instead, she took another step towards him.

“Yes. I cannot afford to do the wrong thing here. Yes, I’m afraid. Afraid that once I let you in, you turn back into the man I know, the one that uses his power to manipulate me, the one that wants me to fulfill some ideal and fit into a neat little fantasy, the one who doesn’t want me to occupy space in his life!”

“So I never really had a chance. Why even try at all?” Rowen straightened, and his face turned into a mask once again, cold and dismissive.

“Because there’s still that damned sliver of hope in my heart, there’s still a flame that longs for you, no matter how often I try to reason myself out of it.”

“Then you’re just waiting for me to screw it up. And because I am who I am, I am bound to screw it up. And all this talk of ‘I want you to establish a relationship with Ivy first’ is just a pile of shite. You’re hiding behind your daughter. You send her to the frontline, hoping that I make my mistake with her and let you and your heart out of it.”

“That is not true!” Belle stepped to the counter, mimicking his stance by pressing her hands to the glass and leaning forward.

“It bloody looks like it. I did everything you asked of me, and still you let me nowhere near you. And I’m not talking about sex here, because that’s the least of my worries.”

“So, in your opinion, it’s enough for you to be decent for a week or two and I should be content with that, acknowledge that you tried and fall into your arms? That’s not how it works. And what do you mean, I let you nowhere near me? I’m the one who stripped down in front of you! I’m the one who asked you to hold me, and I’m the one who makes room for you to fit in.”

“I’m talking about emotional closeness here. You don’t talk to me. I see your scars, but not what left them. And when I try to overcome the distance, to show you that I’m here for you and want to help you, I get rejected. Do you know how painful it is to see you suffer, and be unable to help you, because you’re afraid that every attempt of me helping you is some heinous ploy to take your freedom from you?” He leant closer again, and any other day, Belle would have retreated, made room for him. Today, she was unimpressed with his tactics of invading space.

“So now it’s unfair to _you_ if _I_ am sick? I wasn’t aware that the world is solely revolving around you.” Belle knew that she was losing ground. Knew that her arguments were weak, unreasonable. She hoped he wouldn’t notice.

“This is _not_ about me! It’s about us. When we talked about trying it again, I hoped I’d get at least a chance. I knew you would test me, but I didn’t expect to get no chance at all. I didn’t realize that no matter what I’d do, it would be a mistake.”

“I can’t change the way I feel.”

“But you could take a leap of faith. You were so brave once. What happened to you to make you so fucking afraid?”

Belle closed her eyes. Inhaled. Exhaled. Counted to ten. Fifteen. The silence was suffocating, the air in the shop drained of oxygen like after a heavy thunderstorm, the electricity still crackling, a burnt smell lingering behind. Her skin prickled, and the hair on her arms stood on end. Covered in goose bumps from head to toe. “Get into the back”, she said.

“What?”

“I can’t breathe in this room. I want to go into the back, so I can think.”

Rowen frowned, but he turned and went into the back, using his cane to shove the curtain aside. Belle paused a moment before she followed him. A leap of faith. She probably had just been manipulated into throwing her caution overboard, manipulated into tuning out reason and going with her guts… Something she hadn’t done in a long time. And Rowen was probably the wrong person to trust in this. She could just turn and leave his shop. If she did that, she would never be able to come back again. If she left now, it was over, and this time it would be final. No second, no third chances. She hated this situation. This ultimatum. Trust him now or trust him never.

Rowen awaited her leaning against his workbench, his forehead still furrowed with deep crinkles. Scowling. “Is there even anything left to say?”, he asked, exasperated, and Belle realized that he was just as close to breaking as she was. Somehow she never expected that this could really get to him. He was Rowen Gold, farouche pawnbroker, and even though he said he loved her, she never thought he could really mean it. For him, love and the need to possess were one and the same, she had thought. Maybe she had been wrong.

“Did you really do everything I asked of you?”

“You know that I did.” Impatient. Belle looked at her watch. They had twenty minutes left until Ivy’s dance class was over. Not a lot of time.

“Everything?”

“What the hell do you mean, everything? Of course everything!” He still didn’t understand what she was asking, and Belle crossed the room, came to a halt too close to him, so close she could feel the heat he radiated, the fury still simmering under his skin. The last time he had been so furious, he had grabbed and shaken her, in this very room. But this anger was different. It wasn’t cold, not like his fury when he had ordered her into his house and told her he would find a way to punish her. She lifted her chin, looked at his lips. He shifted. Grasped the edge of the workbench behind him. “Oh.”

Finally the coin dropped, and Belle smiled. Stepped back and shrugged out of her coat. Shucked off her shoes and unbuttoned her jeans, shoved it down.

“What are you doing?” Rowen’s voice was thick. Hoarse, as if his throat was too tight to speak.

“What does it look like? I’m taking a leap of faith. You might wanna undress, because we only have twenty minutes, and I’d like you to kiss me from head to toe and back before those twenty minutes are up.”

Rowen leant his cane against the workbench. Reached for his tie, but paused, his hands hovering over the knot as if he didn’t know how to proceed. “You’re a loose cannon, you know that, right?”

Belle paused, the hem of her sweater in hands, all of a sudden unsure again. “Is this not what you wanted?”

“Gods, Belle, no! I want us to talk, really talk, and understand each other.”

“So you don’t want to sleep with me?”

“Of course I want to. I want to do you on every horizontal, vertical or diagonal, flat, smooth, soft or rough surface on this sodden planet, I want to plough you, fuck you, love you in every damn way, but only if you want it, too, and never just to avoid conflict or avoid an uncomfortable talk.”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“Oh, to hell with it.” Rowen pulled off his tie, bridged the gap between them, plunged his mouth down on hers in a kiss that was hard and desperate and at the same time the sweetest kiss Belle could imagine. His arms came up to press her against his chest, wrap her in an embrace like a bench vise, pushing her backwards until her knees collided with the cot behind her. He shoved her farther, and Belle fell backwards. Rowen held her, controlled their fall, supporting them with one hand on the cot and the other around her back to lower her slowly down. At the same time, he managed to push his knee between her legs, grinding against her crotch, a pressure that set Belle’s loins on fire and had her arch up against him. Only when he had pinned her beneath him did he break the kiss, planting a trail of wet kisses along her jaw, down her throat, and Belle pressed against his shoulders to get him to take his weight off her. She wanted to get rid of her sweater, rid of his clothes, wanted to feel his skin on hers, without those layers, barriers, without armor and defenses.

“Take that off”, she rasped, tearing at his shirtsleeve, and Rowen sat back, unbuttoned his waistcoat. Belle groaned. “I told you, we only have fifteen minutes!” She struggled up, grabbed his shirt and yanked it open, sending buttons flying and tearing seams. Rowen growled, deep in his throat, and the menace of it resounded under her skin, made her nipples harden and her inner muscles clench, and she helped him when he yanked her sweater over her head.

“I wanted to do this slow, and gentle. Not ravish you in the back of my shop.” He hooked his fingers into her panties and pulled, and Belle had to pull up her knees to help him, because his own leg was still between hers and in the way of him getting her undressed. Belle gasped when he tossed her panties over his shoulder and brushed his fingertips over her naked mound. He looked at her, took in the sight of her folds before he grabbed her hips to pull her towards him, against his leg again.

“Right now, I want you to ravish me, Rowen. Next time, when we’ll do this slow, I want you to undress me with your mouth, and touch me with nothing but your lips until I scream your name, but this time, I need something else…”

He groaned, fumbled with his belt, and the clinking sound of him unbuckling flooded her mouth with saliva and had her grinding against his thigh to get him to hurry up. She reached for his fly, yanked his pants open, and slipped her hands inside, to his backside, to cup his ass and dig her nails into those cheeks, to pull him closer. “Gods, Belle!” Rowen pushed his pants and boxers down as one, and captured her wrists, brought them up over her head and pinned them down, laced his fingers with hers as he bent down to kiss her again. Belle wrapped her legs around him, kicked as his thighs and ass to get him closer, and she felt the blunt tip of his cock brush against her. She groaned into his mouth, arched up to press her chest against his, to create friction, pressure, anything, to feel his skin and the frantic beat of his heart, and his ribcage expanding with every gasping breath he took. He tore his lips away again, licked down her throat, sucked on her skin just above the hollow between her collarbones, and Belle knew that he was going to leave a mark, one for everyone to see. Back then, when they had first been together, he left love bites only on places where no one but him would find them… on her breasts, her flanks, her stomach, and the insides of her thighs. Now it was different. It was a statement, one that Belle planned to return. Rowen supported his weight on his elbows, let go of her hands and reached down to align himself with her entrance, brushing his thumb through her folds and over her clit. Belle jerked, gasped, and she could feel his grin against the crook of her neck.

“Please, fuck me already, Rowen! I’m tired of waiting.”

Rowen cupped her face with one hand, held her chin still and leant his forehead against hers, watching her as he pushed into her. Pressed his lips against hers to swallow her whimper, and he bit her lip when she wrapped her arms around him and dragged her nails through his flesh, leaving scratches that marked him just as clearly as he had marked her. Belle gasped when he thrust once, hard and deep, and remained sheathed inside her, merely rocking against her.

“Is that to your liking?”, he grunted, as if he didn’t know full well that it was too little, not enough to sate the craving inside her.

“Fuck, no. Get on your back!”

Rowen chuckled, and pulled her with him when he awkwardly rolled onto his back, still deep inside her, still joined. Belle got rid of her bra before she wriggled and shifted to find the best position to take him, and ride him into the ground. Plunged down, again and again, rested her hands beside his head while she grinded down on him. Shuddered with the warmth rising along her spine, and crying out when he cupped her breasts, squeezed, pinched her nipples. The tension inside her was building fast, crawling up from her knees, along her thighs, spreading from her pelvis, and Belle thrust her head back when her climax washed over her, claimed her, shook her. Rowen gasped, thrust upwards, while Belle rode out the spasms, felt her muscles twitch around his hard cock, and she was still convulsing and unable to breathe when he grabbed her hips to thrust upwards one last time, releasing his seed with a hoarse cry. Belle collapsed on his chest, panting, trembling, unable to move for several minutes. Grateful for his arms around her, holding her to his chest, stroking the back of her head, raking through her hair.

“How much time left?”, he asked after a while, and Belle had a hard time lifting her head to look at her watch.

“Five minutes.”

“Then I suggest we get dressed. Are you able to walk?”

“Barely.”

He laughed, clearly enjoying himself, and Belle decided that he would pay for his glee. Next time. She had forgotten how perfect they fit together on a physical level. Too bad she didn’t have more time, because she already felt the hunger gnaw at her insides again. She dismounted him, got to her feet, her legs wobbly and weak, and started to gather her clothes to dress.

“You missed dinner on Tuesday.”

“I wasn’t sure if I would be welcome.” He watched her from the cot, making no attempt to cover himself up. Completely deranged, shirt and waistcoat hanging open and his pants at his knees, his cock resting soft and glistening with wetness against his thigh. Belle licked her lips and paused, her jeans halfway up her legs. Back then, she had never looked at him like that. Had averted her eyes, too shy to allow herself to see him in a state like that. Now, she knew of the power that her looks held. Was no longer ashamed of looking, and watching.

“Come to dinner tonight?”, she asked, pulling her jeans finally up, and slipping into her sweater without bothering with her bra.

“I would like that, yes.”

“Good.” She slipped into her shoes, and stepped to the cot once more to bend down and kiss him.

“Does that mean we’re still trying?” Rowen kept her from straightening again by slipping a hand around the nape of her neck, and brushed her cheek with his knuckles, a caress that spoke of his longing, tender and feathery.

“No. It means we left the trial phase behind.”

She made it back to Jefferson’s studio just in time, mussed, disheveled, smelling of sex, but happier than she had been in a long time. Maybe a leap of faith had been exactly what she needed.   


	17. Chapter 17

It was like trying to hold water with his hands, or sand with a sieve. Belle slipped through his fingers and shattered, and he was unable to stop it. Maybe it would have been better to set her free after all. Never get her to try that relationship again. Every attempt at getting her to open up and trust him failed, led her to push him away even more vehemently than before. When she didn’t let him care for her when she was sick, he wondered if he would miss anything if he was to never see her and Ivy again. The answer was plain and simple. Yes. He had missed Belle every single day of those eleven years she had been away, and the idea of breaking it off now, no matter how painful or frustrating it was, was like a stab to his guts. With a white-hot dagger. Still, he resolved to give her the space she needed and not call her after he spent the night holding her, listening to her breath and the beat of her heart, hardly sleeping, because he didn’t want to miss a single moment, however brief, of that night. It killed him not to call after that. Killed him not to drop by and look after her. Killed him to wait for her to take the first step.

And when she took it and came to his shop, he wanted to say all the things he had prepared, give her the speech he had rehearsed in his head time and again. But he wasn’t ready, and he tried to stall for time by pretending to write very important numbers into his very important ledger. What spilled over his lips was not even remotely what he had prepared. All his fears, his frustration, his accumulated chagrin boiled over and turned into angry, accusing words. Giving her every reason to go and never come back. What made her turn to him instead was a mystery to him. He just hoped she didn’t sleep with him to appease him. To soothe his anger. He didn’t care in the moment, but when she left his shop, Rowen’s insides churned and roiled and bit, and he wondered if this doubt would ever go.

He bought flowers – simple flowers, hoping they said nothing apart from being pretty, because he truly said enough that day – and when he parked his car in front of her house, he stared at his steering wheel and gathered his courage for so long that he imagined the flowers to wilt in the time it took him to get out of the car. One of her neighbours just walked by his car, frowning, and Rowen searched his mind for the name of the man who stopped a few feet away from him, forcing his dog (which looked more like a rat, really) to halt.

“I hope you’re here to tell her to stop with the music”, the man with the dog said, but when Rowen flashed his teeth in a snarl, he scurried off, mumbling something into his scarf, which looked as if it was made of several of the same dogs like the one he was walking. Rowen watched the man melt into the twilight, and for the first time, he noticed the music. It sounded as if someone had made it their goal to fill the whole street with sound. Just when he opened the little gate and crossed the path to the porch, the song ended (if it was to be called a song, since it seemed to consist mainly of… rhythm? Drums? A bass? Rowen couldn’t say, but it was almost hypnotizing). Ended, and started all over again. He climbed the few steps up to the door and pressed the door bell. And waited. After a while, he rang again. And again. Tapped his fingers against his cane, and inhaled, before he rang again, and held his thumb pressed against the door bell. Finally the door opened, and a wave of sound, clearer than before when it had been dulled through the door, washed over him. He blinked, and stared at Belle. She was bouncing on the balls of her feet, dancing with the rhythm. Covered in sweat, wisps of hair sticking to her skin. A tank top, trousers that looked like balloons, ready to take flight, her stomach bare and her feet naked.

“You’re going to catch death like that”, he said, and extended his flowers, drooping heads and all. As if he had been sitting on them.

“Heliotrope?” Belle took the flowers, stepping aside, and Rowen closed his eyes for a second before he crossed the threshold, gathering his courage once again. When Belle closed the door behind him, he turned, slid his free arm around her, his hand coming to a rest at the nape of her neck, and kissed her. Just like that. Following her as she swayed backwards against the door, catching their fall with his other hand against the door. His cane clattered to the floor, and his breath left him in a gush when Belle clawed into his coat sleeves, pulled him closer and arched her chest against him. Her lips were soft, sweet beneath his, and what started somewhat in a rush, somewhat hastily and with precipitation, turned into a tender, gentle kiss, nipping each other’s lips softly, like silk on skin. She tasted of tea, and she opened up to let him in when he licked over her bottom lip, sucked it in, poised with closed eyes and his breath held. He didn’t want to let go.

“What are you doing?” Ivy’s voice cut through the music that enwrapped them, shipped them off to a place where only Belle and he existed, two people with hearts beating like drums, two hearts sharing a cocoon, and he resurfaced in a reality where Belle shared a tiny house with her daughter – his daughter – who suspected him of being an ogre who planned to eat her mom. He did, not that he would tell her.

“Kissing”, he stated, turning and smiling at the girl, while Belle wiped over her lips as if she could destroy the proof of what had just happened.

“Why are you kissing my mom?”

Belle tugged at his sleeve, angry red blotches on her cheeks. “I haven’t told her yet”, she whispered.

“I’m kissing her because… that’s what grown-ups do when…” He trailed off. Stared at his daughter, who stared back, unblinking, and tilting her head in a way that made him fear for his life when he said the wrong thing. She looked as if she could kill him with that death-glare. Behind him, Belle bent down, picking up his cane and extending it for him to take.

“When they’re in love. Just like I kiss you because I love you.”

Rowen regretted to have kissed Belle at all. What had he been thinking?

“You don’t kiss me like that”, Ivy observed. “And you never kissed Greg like that.”

“I kiss you like mothers kiss their children, because the love of parents for their children is different from the love between lovers.”

“So you and Mr. Gold are lovers?”

Rowen flinched when Ivy returned to calling him ‘Mr. Gold’. She did it when she wanted to distance herself from him, and clearly the idea of her mother and he being lovers was nothing she wanted to deal with. All of a sudden, the music blasted too loud, unbearable, and his skin started to itch. He took off his coat.

“Yes. Rowen and I are lovers.” Belle looked at him over her shoulder, a slight frown on her face, but she didn’t let on what caused it. Instead, she shrugged, and began to twitch to the music again. She took Ivy’s hand and led her into the living room, with dancing steps, hopping and shaking herself like some spooky shaman, and Rowen wondered what he was supposed to do now. He curled his fingers around his cane. Took a deep breath and followed them into the living room. Belle swayed in front of the stereo, and turned it off when the song ended once more. “We’ve been dancing”, she explained.

“I can see that. Don’t stop on my account.”

“Oh, it’s time to start cooking anyway. Maybe you can start with Ivy, while I hop under the shower. I’ll be quick…”

“But Mom, he can’t cook.”

“That’s why you have to help him.” Belle smiled, and before anyone could protest again, she was gone, leaving him with his pouting daughter and completely at a loss.

“I suppose your mother believes in plunging in at the deep end”, he said, and Ivy wrinkled her nose.

“What does that mean?”

“Well, it’s either that or she has a perverted joy in seeing me drown. So, what’s for dinner today?”

Ivy narrowed her eyes, and he hoped that he still had a few years left before she would discover voodoo and start cursing him and prick a little Rowen-doll with needles. Made a mental note to never let drop any hair clippings of him where she could get her hands on them.

“I thought you’re lovers. Why would she want you to drown? Were you not nice to her?” Ivy ignored his dinner question, but at least she proceeded him into the kitchen. Like a cat, she climbed onto the counter to fetch a glass from one of the upper cupboards. Rowen supposed that she had always been as graceful as she was now. He couldn’t imagine her as a chubby, little toddler that collided with things and plopped down onto her diapered bum. His smile was sad when he answered her.

“It’s a figure of speech. I’m not very skilled at talking to young ladies such as you, and we didn’t have the best start. But I think I’ve been nice enough to your mother.” The image of Belle riding him flashed before his inner eye, and he had to loosen the knot of his tie and clear his throat. At least he didn’t dissolve into sweat anymore when he talked to his daughter. And that despite the fact that she was much more intimidating and minatory than he had expected her to be. He still fought the lively memories of the afternoon (had it really been only a few hours before?) when Ivy opened the fridge and extracted some food. He wasn’t really of any help, and Ivy had to tell him what to do, but eventually he set up a pan and, after taking off blazer and waistcoat, and rolling up his sleeves, he fried vegetarian burger patties while Ivy toasted buns. When Belle came back, father and daughter had formed a rather good team, he thought. Still, he almost burned himself when Belle stepped at his side and got to her tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek.

“You look sexy at the stove, darling. You should cook more often.” Belle grinned, and Ivy grimaced. He tended to believe Ivy’s grimace more than he believed Belle’s assessment of his looks, but he blushed nevertheless.  

“I’m sure that’s not true.” Somehow it stunned him that she kissed him as if it was the most normal thing in the world. He was still in a state of shock when they sat down to eat, and he managed to stain his tie with sauce, causing Belle to reach over, taking him completely by surprise, and take it off him. After that, his hands shook even more. They didn’t stop shaking all evening, which made him a rather hopeless case at Jenga (much to Ivy’s joy, who hated losing at games), and he was still nervous and jittery when they brought Ivy to bed.

“Are you alright?”, Belle asked him when they were once more down in the living room, and she snuggled into his arm, draping an arm over his stomach (full, despite having eaten only vegetarian burgers), and resting her head against his shoulder.

“I honestly don’t know. I’m still… out of sorts.” He raked through her hair, wrapping strands of it around his fingers, and pressed a kiss to the crown of her head.

“Why?” 

“Did you sleep with me just to appease me?” He had not wanted to ask so bluntly, out of the blue. But the question had burnt its way up his throat and across his lips. Belle stroked his arm and sighed.

“No. I don’t think so. I want to trust you, even though I lost my ability to trust long ago. I don’t know how to express that.”

Rowen stroked her hair, her shoulder, and finally reached over and tilted her face up to kiss her. Her lips were soft beneath his, and if possible, that made him even sadder. How would he ever get her to trust him, when every step he took was bound to make her retreat? He didn’t want to take the relationship to that next level when it only happened because she felt obligated to do so. There would always be that rest of doubt that she didn’t act out of love, but out of guilt. And he was enough of an egoist to want her to love him, truly, out of the depth of her heart, for himself, not because she was indebted to him. That wasn’t love. He drew back, brushed her cheek with his knuckles. “I should be going.”

“What? Why? I thought you… I thought you would stay. Overnight.” Belle dug her nails into his sleeve, into his arm, as if she really wanted him to stay. How he wanted to believe that it was true…

“I don’t have a toothbrush with me.” Rowen wanted to push her gently back, but Belle almost crawled onto his lap, determined to pin him down on the couch, as if he would throw her off and run out of the door.

“I have a guest toothbrush.”

“Do all your guest get the same toothbrush? That’s slightly disturbing.”

“No.” Belle blushed, and straddled his lap, and that alone was almost enough to change his mind. “I bought one for you on my way home… so you have a toothbrush here…”

She fixed her eyes on his throat, and Rowen clasped her arms, hoping she would look at him. “What are you saying?”

“I want you to have a toothbrush here.”

“Right.” She didn’t ask him to move in with her. She didn’t offer him a place in her home, at the heart of her family. But a toothbrush was definitely more than he would have expected so soon. “So… do you want me to stay overnight?” He rubbed his thumbs in circles on her arms, and Belle nodded, her eyes still fixed on his throat. She reached up and straightened his collar. Played with the topmost button.

“Yes. I would like that.”

“Then look at me?” Rowen wanted to be sure. Somehow, between her sickness and their fight – and the sex – he came to the realization that he didn’t want to endanger the fragile balance she had created for herself. She was building a life, probably for the first time, for her daughter and herself, and no matter how much he longed to have a place in it, he wanted her life to be on firm ground. Stable. Safe enough to hold, even when their wills clashed, or they encountered a conflict. He wanted her to feel safe enough to speak her mind. Because deep down, he knew that he had failed with that the first time around. He had wanted her to refuse him and yet made it impossible for her to do so.

Belle lifted her eyes up to meet his. “Do you know what the flowers you brought me mean?”

“I hoped they would be, for once, without meaning.”

Belle smiled, and he had to force himself to keep his grip gentle. Each smile of her squeezed his heart like a fist, and made him want to smother her in his embrace. “Then you failed. Heliotrope stands for devotion.”

“Then I didn’t fail at all.”

Belle’s fingers curled around his collar, her gaze swept down to his lips, and he didn’t dare to breathe when she leant closer, pulled him closer, and kissed him once more. He slid his hands from her arms to her back, embraced her, and held her close to his heart.

“Do you remember what I told you for next time, this afternoon?”, Belle whispered, after drawing back.

“Hm… I believe you said you want me to undress you with my mouth and kiss every inch of you until you scream my name?”

“Something like that, yeah.” Belle grinned, and he had no choice but to return the wicked grin. He asked about Ivy when he followed her into her bedroom, and learned that the door had a lock.

“And I promise you not to scream”, Belle said. Which was a little sad, because he liked to make her scream.

“I don’t have a pajama…”, he murmured, his hand pausing at the topmost button of his shirt, and Belle stepped to him, gently pushing his hand out of the way, and started to unbutton his shirt.

“You don’t need one. I want you naked.”

“All night?”

“Are you afraid of freezing? Because I will keep you warm.” She pulled his shirt out of his pants and shoved it over his shoulders. Kissed his chin. His collarbones. Reached for his belt. He took her hands, stilled them.

“Let me, sweetheart. I know that you like to watch me undress.”

Belle giggled, but she stepped back and watched as he took off his clothes piece by piece, folding everything neatly and placing it on a chair (on top of a stack of books), until he was down to his boxers. It had been half a quip, but maybe she really liked to watch him undress, because she didn’t take her eyes off him for a second. Rowen crawled into her bed, stretching out on his side, and smiled at her. “Your turn”, he said, and clenched his hand into the sheets when she didn’t hesitate, yanking her sweater over her head and shoving down her sweatpants without a second thought. She had been naked underneath, and the thought that she had spent all evening like this had him hard in an instant. Belle climbed onto the bed, bent her head to kiss him, and Rowen grabbed her, rolled onto his back and pulled her over his chest.

“See, I undressed you with my mouth”, he murmured between kisses, and Belle poked him.

“Not exactly what I meant.”

“Not? Ah, you have to be more specific, then.”

Belle slid down from his chest, to his side, snuggling close, and she captured his hand and laced her fingers with his. “Kiss me.”

Rowen pulled her hand closer, pressed his lips to her knuckles. “Here?”

“Yes.” Belle sounded hoarse, and her voice resounded inside him, made him brim and tremble and prickle. He bent down and kissed her jaw, and the sensible spot beneath her earlobe.

“Here?”, he whispered, pinning her hand to the pillow beside her head.

“Yes.” It was hardly more than a breath, and she sucked in air with something close to a hiccup when he trailed kisses down her throat, down her breastbone and across her chest, until he reached the cluster of blossoms above her heart. He kissed every single flower, soft, slow, reverently. Belle sighed. “Yes”, she whispered, and he trailed kisses down to the tip of her breast. Kissed her soft nipple, until it hardened under his lips, and he licked over it, pushed his tongue against it until it glistened, and hardened even more when he breathed over it. He did the same with the other nipple, and Belle sighed again. He followed the vine between her breasts down to the edge of her ribcage, kissing, licking, sucking, but when he slid a little down and splayed his hands over her flanks, she reached down, clasped his wrists and pulled his hands away. “Just your mouth, darling.”

Rowen clasped her wrists then, and they held on to each other like links of a chain, while he kissed his way down her stomach, dipping his tongue into her navel, and farther down. He had to let go of her hands for a moment when he settled between her legs, and while he kissed the passion flower above her hip bone, he struggled with himself, wondering if he should voice the desire that was dancing on the tip of his tongue.

“Belle, sweetheart…” Her fingers raked through his hair, and he pressed his face to her stomach once more, gathering words. They seemed to resist him, flee him, so filled was he with her, with the feel of her skin, with her scent, and her sighs and her heartbeat vibrating under her skin. “Belle, I want to bring you pleasure. Would you… would you let me watch while you touch yourself? I want to learn how you like to be touched…”

Her fingers stilled, and she inhaled deeply, holding the breath in her chest. “You’re good enough at it.”

“It’s been a long time, Belle. The last time I was with a woman was with you.”

“Five hours are hardly a long time.”

Rowen reached for her hand again, brought it to his lips. Kissed her fingertips. “No, sweetheart. But the eleven years prior to that were a long time.”

“Oh…”

“And you changed in so many ways… I wouldn’t dare to assume I still know how to please you.” He kissed her fingertips once more before he guided her hand gently between her legs, placing it above her sex. It had been strange to see her naked for the first time that afternoon, to discover that the dark nest of curls was gone, that she now was smooth, and exposed. But he supposed that it made sense for her. It displayed her tattoos much clearer. Belle didn’t move for a long moment, and he feared that he had been too bold. Turned his head to kiss the passion flower on the inside of her thigh, barely touching her skin, and letting his eyes flutter shut. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to impose.”

“No, it’s… it’s so very sweet of you. But also a bit naughty.”

He smiled against her skin, and her fingers on her mound twitched. “You found me out, sweetheart. I’m still a pervert.”

“You never were. You just… You’re kinky. But I like that.” He heard the smile in her voice, and took a deep breath when she started to stroke over her folds, gently. When she slid a finger along her slit, spreading wetness along it, before she spread her outer lips, he had to press his loins against the mattress, longing for friction, because it left him breathless and overwhelmed to watch her. He sucked in her scent, and rolled his hips as she circled her clit, rubbing along the right side of the little nub, and he groaned when Belle gasped, and rolled her hips, and twitched. She used three fingers to rub and tease her clit, and it was just as much the view as the display of trust that humbled him. He had to keep himself from diving for her glistening flesh, and he relished every little gasp, every moan and whimper escaping her, every twitch of her hips and every arch of her back. She came faster and harder than he expected, arching up, riding out the spasms. Glorious. When she fell back into the pillows, breathless, panting, he kissed her hand, the back of her fingers that rested between her wet folds. Kissed them, licked the wetness from them. Swirled his tongue around her fingertips and sucked one finger after the other into his mouth, sucking off every last droplet of her juices, savoring her taste on his tongue, and the languorous heaviness of her body beneath him.

“My turn”, he rasped then, taking her hand to clasp it again, holding her wrists still beside her hips. Kissed her damp, sticky folds, before he lapped softly over her clit. Belle jerked, groaned, pressed her thighs against his shoulders and dug her heels into his back.

“God, Rowen…” Her words dissolved into a groan deep in her throat when he found the spot at the side of the little bud that she had paid the greatest attention to, and licked it again and again. She started sobbing, jerking, rolling her hips against his lips, and he lifted his head to find out if she was okay. “Rowen, please! Please…” She thrust her head back, clawed her hands into the sheets, lifted her hips off the mattress.

“Please what?”

“Don’t stop. Don’t fucking stop…”

He heeded her words, returned his lips to her clit. Sucked on it until Belle came apart, with a hoarse cry that sent shivers down his spine. His own need was so overwhelming by now that he knew he would probably spill himself with the first thrust, if he even made it that long. He didn’t move yet. Still rested between her legs, occasionally lapping at her core, and kissing his way along the vine on her lower belly, trailing the scar of her c-section with his tongue, and sucking on the flower on the inside of her thigh until it glowed in a deep purple, his mark on hers. Belle sighed, and her knees fell apart in her deep relaxation after that second climax. He skidded upwards, pulling her wrists with him to lace fingers once more beside her head, supporting his weight on his elbows.

“Ready?”, he croaked, overtaken with the feeling of his cock rubbing against her wet entrance, hardly able to keep still. Belle smiled, and kissed him, sucked on his bottom lip. It was this that broke him, overrode his control, and he pushed into her with a groan, almost a howl. Belle swallowed his undignified noise, wrapping her legs around his waist. He rocked against her, lost himself in the heat, the silken wetness, her inner muscles clenching around him, and his climax rolled up his spine like a wave, washing him away into a dark light, into a breathless, pulsing darkness that swallowed every thought. He collapsed, burying his face in her hair, pressed against her neck, and it took him a while to regain enough strength to roll to her side and pull her into his arms.

“Are you alright?”, Belle asked after a while, and Rowen hardly managed a nod.

“Dead, I think. Most certainly died…”

Belle giggled, and pulled the covers over them. “Sleep, my poor darling.”

He didn’t need her encouragement. Before her head settled back against his shoulder, sleep claimed him. And maybe that was for the best. Maybe he didn’t want to know what the next day would bring. Maybe he just wanted to remain happy for a little longer.


	18. Chapter 18

Something was different in the house, and Ivy couldn’t exactly say what it was. But she woke up earlier than she used to, and the house didn’t feel like home at all. More like it had first felt when they moved in. Like a new pair of shoes, too stiff and uncomfortable and pinching at each step. Too cold. She slid out of bed and tapped through the hallway to Mom’s bedroom. Maybe it would get better if Mom held her, and they cuddled for a while. The door to Mom’s bedroom stood slightly ajar, and just when Ivy wanted to push it open, she heard her mother’s voice. Something told her that she wasn’t talking to Ivy, and so she paused, one hand at the door, and listened.

“That tickles, Rowen!” Mom squeaked, and Ivy pressed her lips together. So Mr. Gold was still there. In her mom’s bedroom. She heard a low hum, and Mom sighed.

“I never noticed them so clearly before.” That was Mr. Gold’s voice, and he talked in that low voice that he also used when he talked to her.

“They are stretch marks. I prefer them to be hard to see.”

“They are beautiful. I wish I had seen you when you were pregnant.”

They were silent for a moment, and Ivy shifted. She was sure that it was wrong of her to listen, but she didn’t dare to go inside. Maybe Mr. Gold wouldn’t want her to snuggle into her mother’s arms now.

“I was sweating all the time, my feet were swollen and I was cranky. You didn’t miss a lot.”

“Hush. I missed everything. You have no idea how much I wish I could turn back time and see my child grow inside you. And then outside you.” He still sounded gentle, but Ivy’s chest grew tight, and she wished he wouldn’t be there. She wished he wouldn’t call her _his child_.

“I’m sorry. Let’s not talk about it…” Her mother sounded distressed now, and Ivy wanted to barge in and poke Mr. Gold with his cane. But she hesitated, because he was already talking again.

“Do you want more children?”

Mom didn’t answer at once, and Ivy pressed her eyes shut to hold back the stupid tears that came out of nowhere. The idea of her mother having a baby again, with Mr. Gold even, made her eyes sting and her nose prickle. She didn’t want her mom to have other kids. Maybe she would have a better kid then. Maybe she would love it more than she loved Ivy.

“I wanted. I was pregnant twice, and lost them. I don’t want to go through that again.”

“I’m sorry.” Somehow Mr. Gold didn’t sound sorry at all, more like someone who was forced to say something he didn’t mean, and Ivy clenched her hands to fists. She didn’t like him being there. Her mother said they were lovers, but he didn’t sound like a lover now. Ivy didn’t know a lot about love, but she knew that if you loved someone, you wanted them to be happy. It had been like that with Amber’s ferrets: Because Amber wanted them to be happy and healthy, she had always cleaned their boxes and given them fresh straw to sleep, and cuddled them, and it had been devastating when one had been sick. If you loved something, you didn’t want it to be sick. Ivy supposed it was the same with people. She pushed the door open and walked into the room, determined to get Mr. Gold to leave her mom in peace.

“Hey, baby!” Mom smiled at her, but Ivy only saw the dark arm encircling her mother’s waist, pressing her to Mr. Gold. She met his gaze, and his eyes were like that of a dog that had been caught stealing food in the kitchen. He didn’t belong here. Ivy climbed onto the mattress, staring at his arm, and he pulled away, and pulled up the covers. It was weird to see him without his suit, just in a white undershirt, and Ivy didn’t like it.

“I couldn’t sleep anymore”, she stated, and her mom stretched out her arms and pulled her into a hug.

“It’s time to get up anyways. Wouldn’t want you to be late for school.”

Ivy snuggled close to her mom and glared at Mr. Gold, who fidgeted with the covers and skidded away from them. His face was flushed, heated. Uncomfortable to look at, as if his face was something forbidden.

“Now, hush, into the bathroom, baby. I’ll be with you in a minute.” Mom kissed her cheek, and Ivy slipped out of bed again. She didn’t want to leave her mother, but she didn’t have a reason to stay.

Later, when everyone was dressed, they ate breakfast together in the kitchen. Ivy stared into her bowl of cereals, while Mom and Mr. Gold looked at each other. They forgot Ivy was even there, and she wondered what was so interesting about their faces that they had to stare like that. Ivy had never seen real cows, but she imagined that this was how cows looked at the moon, because the full moon had the color of milk, and they looked at it with huge eyes that reflected the stars and long eyelashes that caught moths like spiderwebs.

“I need to go”, she said, after finishing her cereal, and Mom snapped out of her trance.

“Of course… I’ll just get my keys.”

“I can drive you to school”, Mr. Gold said, and Ivy looked at her mom, hoping she would decline. But Mom smiled, just as stupid as a cow.

“No. Mom will drive me”, Ivy said, and Mr. Gold had his sad dog eyes again. But Mom looked at Ivy, and for the first time that morning she seemed to see her.

“Yes, baby, I’ll drive you. We’ll talk later, Rowen.” Mom hopped from her chair, and pecked Mr. Gold’s cheek with a kiss. They all left the house together, and Mom kissed him again in the driveway. Ivy saw it out of the car, and she pressed her schoolbag to her chest and wished it was Crocky. She climbed out of the car after kissing her mother goodbye in the school’s parking lot, and she met up with Grace in the hallway in front of their classroom. Somehow, Grace knew that something was wrong without Ivy saying a single word, and her friend slid her hand around Ivy’s and squeezed.

“Mr. Gold stayed overnight”, Ivy told her, before they spoke a single word about anything else, and Grace bit her lip.

“Then it’s serious. I don’t think it’s allowed for adults to stay overnight with someone if it isn’t serious.”

“What does that mean?” Ivy didn’t know if she really wanted to know, but she had to ask anyways.

“I think they only stay overnight when they’re in love or something. Did your mom say she loves him?” Since Grace was a year older, her words had a certain authority, and Ivy supposed that she knew more about such things than she did. Ivy had never seen her mother act the way she did now, not even with Greg. Thinking about him made her feel restless, and her stomach twisted, so she banned Greg back to the back of her mind.

“She said they’re lovers.”

“Then it’s clear. They’re going to make another baby.” Grace nodded gravely, and Ivy had to bite back the tears. Soon her mother would forget she even existed, because she loved Mr. Gold and he wanted to have another baby. He had said he had missed seeing her grow inside her mother and then when she was born, and it was only logical that he would want to have a baby that he could love from the beginning, and not a child like her, one that didn’t like him and had caused her mother to get sick when she ran away. Ivy sat down at her table and stared at her hands, clenched into fists, before she remembered to take out her books. She didn’t hear a single word of what their teacher, Miss Blanchard, was saying. The lesson went by in a blur, just like the next. Her stomach roiled, churned, and she knew she would be sick if she didn’t move, didn’t _do_ something. She didn’t want to cry in front of her class, or her teacher, but her eyes were brimming with tears, and it was all Mr. Gold’s fault. It was so unfair. When the bell rang for break, Ivy snatched her schoolbag and ran down the hall, without a word to Grace, and she crossed the school yard and the parking lot, making herself small and keeping behind the hedges, so no one would see how she left the school grounds. She didn’t stop running until she was out of breath, after reaching Storybrooke’s center, and then she ran some more, down Main Street, until she reached the pawn shop.

The bell over the door protested with an earsplitting tingle as she burst in, and Mr. Gold, standing behind the counter, looked up from a ledger and frowned.

“Ivy, what…”

Ivy didn’t wait for him to finish his stupid question. She was bursting with anger, bursting with uneasiness, and she had to get rid of that feeling now, before she suffocated on it. “I hate you! I hate you, and I don’t want you to be with my mom! I don’t want you to come to our house! I don’t want you to take my mom away and have other kids! I hate you!”

She stood in the door, her fists clenched, breathing hard, and blind with tears, and she trembled so hard that her teeth chattered. Her heart beat so loud in her ears and her mouth that it drowned out everything else. Mr. Gold rounded the counter, and Ivy was afraid he would grab her, or slap her when he walked towards her. She whirled around, pushed at the door, but it wouldn’t open. An embarrassing squeak slipped over her lips before she remembered that she had to pull to open the door, but it was already too late. Mr. Gold’s shadow fell over her, and his hand came to rest on her upper arm, heavy and hot and stinging through the sleeve of her sweater, and she twitched in fear.

“Ivy, sweetie, shhh, calm down. Sweetie…” Something clattered, sending another shock through her, and she could hardly breathe. Mr. Gold knelt down beside her and pulled her towards him. She was shaking so violently now that she couldn’t do anything against it when he closed his arms around her and pressed her face to his shoulder. She was sobbing, unable to breathe, deaf with the fear that choked her.

“I hate you. I hate you.” She repeated it over and over again, and the smooth fabric of his suit got wet from her tears, and smeared with snot as she sobbed against his shoulder. His hand, warm and gentle, patted her head.

“I know, sweetie, I know. That’s ok.”

He didn’t let go of her, but Ivy was too weak to fight, and so she just held still and let the warmth of his embrace seep into her arms and legs and her chest and back. Her limbs were like rubber, and somehow she flopped down on his lap and sobbed against his tie, and breathed in his faint smell of tea and wood polish.

“Did you run away from school?”, he asked after a while, and the low hum of his voice felt like a cat’s purr on her shoulder, where his breath swept over her.

“Maybe, yes.” There was no use in denying, seeing as she was in his shop and not at school, where she should be at this time. He was still stupid.

“Oh sweetie, what are we going to do about that? You can’t just run away all the time.”

Ivy realized that she had managed to get herself into trouble once again. What if her mom got sick again now? She couldn’t hold back a new wave of tears at that thought, and she began to shake again. She had been so angry and afraid that she had needed to run, and needed to yell, needed to get those words out of her throat so she could breathe again and her stomach no longer bit and twisted.

“Are they going to expel me?” It wasn’t really what she wanted to ask, but the right words fled her, and this was the closest she could get.

“No sweetie. I’m going to talk with them. Shall I bring you back to school, or do you want to stay with me? I could make you tea, so you feel a little better.”

Ivy sniffed. She didn’t want to go back to school. She would get scolded, and they would stare at her. But she didn’t want to go to the flower shop or home either. “Do you think you could… not tell Mom about it? I don’t want her to get sick again.”

“Do you think it’s a good idea to keep secrets from your mom? I’m sure she would want to know that you’re upset.”

“I’m not upset.” She wriggled, wanted to get away from him now. Mr. Gold let his arms fall away, and Ivy scrambled to her feet, despite her shaking knees. He looked up at her, and his mouth was twisted into a weird smile. A little as if his face didn’t know how to smile properly.

“Would you hand me my cane, darling?”

Ivy bent down and picked up the cane, and for a moment she weighed it in her hand and contemplated to poke him with it. She stretched it out for him to take before she could give in to the strange curiosity, and watched as he struggled up to his feet.

“So, have you decided? Back to school?”

“Are you not mad that I hate you?” Ivy pressed her schoolbag to her chest and tilted her head, watching him as he brushed invisible dust from his knees.

“Sad. But I understand that it’s not easy to be ripped out of the life you know, abandoned by the father you know, and presented with a stranger, who, on top of it all, also has a little bit of a bad temper. When someone’s life changes so drastically, it’s only natural that it takes some time to come to terms with it. So, no, I’m not mad. I don’t expect you to love me. I would like it, yes, but if it never happens, then I can live with that, too.” He turned and limped towards the back, and Ivy followed him as he walked into the back room. He filled a kettle with water in an old sink, and placed it on a single hotplate. She watched him prepare a teapot and two cups on saucers. Somehow, his words made the uneasiness inside her grow again.

“Maybe I will never even like you. Maybe you’ll want a better child one day.”

He stilled, and Ivy held her breath, and took a step backwards when he turned around. But he just pulled out a stool on wheels from under the workbench and sat down, and extended a hand towards her. Ivy allowed that he took her hand and pulled her closer, but she didn’t want to look at his face. She didn’t know where to look, though, when he put his huge hand to her cheek, brushed her hair aside, and nudged her chin up with his thumb. He waited until she looked at him, and met his eyes, before he spoke.

“Ivy, darling, you’re perfect. And children are not like… cars or something. You don’t love one more because it’s ‘better’ in some regard. You love all children equally, and unconditionally.”

“How do you know that?”

“Let me tell you a little secret. Not even your mom knows this, and it happened a long time ago. Do you remember that I told you about my accident?”

“The one with your leg? You didn’t tell me what happened.”

He smiled, and took both her hands into his. Her hands looked tiny in his grip. “It was when I still lived in Boston and went to law school. I had a girlfriend, and a baby. One weekend, we drove out to spend a few days away from Boston, and we had a huge fight while we were on the road. That’s when the accident happened.”

He licked his lips, and Ivy looked quickly away. His hands tightened around hers, and he took a deep breath before he continued talking. “My girlfriend and my son died that day. And there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss my baby boy. But, you know, even if he still was alive, I would love you just the same as I love him. I am glad that I got to know you, Ivy. I truly am.”

“Why did you never tell my mom about this?”

“That’s complicated, sweetheart. Some things are so painful that we don’t want to look at them. It takes effort, and strength, to look at them, and it’s never easy. And sometimes it’s just easier if things that belong to the past stay in the past. I think if your mom knew about my son, she would feel even worse that she never told me about you.”

Ivy wriggled her hands out of his grip and looked at them. They felt warm. “I would like to stay here and have tea with you. But please don’t tell Mom.”

Rowen smiled, and brushed her cheek with his knuckles. “We’ll see about that. I suppose the school already called her.”

And sure enough, just when the kettle started to whistle, the phone rang, and Rowen answered it and poured water into the teapot while he did so.

“Don’t worry, Belle. She’s safe.” He winked at Ivy, and she sat down onto the cot and pulled her knees up to her chest, making herself tiny. “Don’t get mad, sweetheart. She just was upset, but she’s better now. I’ll bring her over when she had her tea.” There was a tiny pause, in which he placed the lid on the teapot and smiled at Ivy. “Yes, there’s really no need. I’ve got it. See you later.”

After he’d hung up, he sat down again, watching the teapot, as if the tea would brew faster if he watched it.

“Is she mad at me?”, Ivy dared to ask, still worried that her mom would get sick again.

“Worried, mostly, I think.”

They were silent for a while, until Rowen poured her a cup of tea, added a little milk, and extended the cup towards her. Ivy took it, careful not to touch his fingers. The tea smelled like him, and somehow, Ivy liked it. “Maybe I don’t hate you”, she said, after sipping on her tea for some time, and Rowen smiled.

When he brought her to the flower shop, he rested his hand on her shoulder when they entered and Mom rushed towards her, and somehow the warmth of his hand helped her not to cry when Mum pulled her into a tight hug, just before she pulled back again and gave Ivy a real dressing-down.  


	19. Chapter 19

"I think it would be best if you didn’t come over tonight." Belle didn’t dare to look at Rowen, and so it caught her by surprise when he placed his fingertips beneath her chin and tilted her face up.

“I was about to suggest the same thing. Maybe we went too fast about it. Ivy needs more time.” His smile was warm, rueful, and Belle returned it with trembling lips. She cast a glance at Ivy, who sat in the backroom of the flower shop at the workbench and braided flower stems.

“Why did she run away this time?”

Rowen followed her eyes, and something sad flitted over his face. “She came to tell me how much she hates me. And that she doesn’t want me to take you away, or make another baby with you.”

“What?”

“I suppose she heard us this morning and drew the wrong conclusion. But don’t worry. I told her that it’s ok for her to feel like this. She’s allowed to hate me.”

Belle swayed a little, and disguised it as a deliberate movement to lean against him, snuggling her face against his shoulder for a moment and wrap her arms around his waist. “I’m impressed how well you handled it”, she murmured, and felt him vibrate with a chuckle.

“What can I say, I have a talent in handling strong-minded women.”

“And now you’re just talking rubbish.” But Belle smiled, and rubbed her nose on his tie. Maybe this could work after all. Maybe they would make a happy little family.

“But it’s cute rubbish, admit it.” Rowen pressed a kiss into her hair, and Belle decided that she was really happy. And she did her best to hold on to that feeling later when she had to call Ivy’s school and discuss her daughter’s disappearance, and then when they arrived home, after Belle had taken the rest of the day off. Ivy was still out of it, and Belle made them chocolate pudding.

“Rowen is not going to take me away, baby”, she said, when they both cuddled on the couch, with a bowl of pudding (with whipped cream) in hands.

“That’s what you say. What if Greg remembers that he loves us? And Rowen is… he’s… I don’t know.” Ivy stared into her bowl, as if the pudding could tell her the answer.

“Darling, it’s been months now. And even if Greg would remember, I wouldn’t go back. That’s over. And I love Rowen.”

“But he’s a liar, and he was mean to you!” Ivy put her bowl to the table, and Belle’s heart broke over the agony in her little face. If she couldn’t even enjoy chocolate pudding, then it was very serious.

“I told you that he was upset. He would never hurt any of us. And he was also very nice to me. Nicer than Greg.”

Ivy was breathing heavily, but she didn’t say anything else. Instead, she snuggled up to Belle, and for a while, Belle just played with her daughter’s curls. Her poor little girl. So many things to process. Belle wasn’t surprised that that one incident, when Ivy had witnessed Rowen’s first reaction to learning that he had a daughter, was so deeply etched into her perception of this new father. Ivy had always known that Greg wasn’t her biological father, but he had still been the father that was there for her, the father who brought her to bed at night, who cuddled and played with her, who took her out on camping trips and theme parks, who slayed bugs and patched her up when she fell. Ivy adored him. And of course it left a deep gash on her little heart that he cast them out so thoughtlessly. Ignored them, as if they never had existed. It was, in a way, better for Belle’s well-being that way. If she would never see him again, it was still too soon. For Ivy, though, it was devastating, and nothing could fill the void he left behind. And Rowen… he said he loved her. But did he love Ivy? Or did he just want to know her out of obligation, because she happened to be his only offspring? Did he even want a family? Belle felt her happiness slip away, and a heaviness settled on her chest, a suffocating weight. She knew it, was familiar with this gravity. It had always been there, and she never managed to outrun it. But just now, when she felt it return, she realized that, for the first time in years, it had been absent for a while. Was it because she was with Rowen again? Was it his attentiveness, his thoughtfulness towards her? Granted, at first he had tried to run her over, tried to go on like before, in their old ways. Now he waited for her to take the lead and show him where to go, and what to do.

“Rowen makes me happy”, she said, and she could hear the wonder in her own voice. Ivy pressed her face to Belle’s chest, and her tears wetted Belle’s shirt. Her poor baby. “Maybe you should eat your pudding. Chocolate always helps.”

Ivy sat up to take her bowl, and only then something she had said earlier registered with Belle. She tilted her head. “Why do you say he’s a liar?”

“I don’t know if it’s a real lie. Is it lying to keep secrets?” Ivy stuffed her mouth with pudding now, and chewed. Pudding didn’t need to be chewed. Something was off.

“No. Keeping secrets is not lying. Did he tell you to keep something secret?” Belle’s arms prickled.

“No. He didn’t tell me to keep it a secret. He just said that not even you know it…” Ivy fell silent, paled, and Belle took care to place her own pudding bowl very carefully on the table. Took care to move slow, measured. She didn’t want to startle Ivy, or scare her.

“So he shared a secret with you?”

Ivy squirmed. And even though Belle didn’t want to pry, and didn’t want to poke around in his private matters… she didn’t want Ivy to be in the position of a secret keeper.

“He said it’s a secret, yes.” Ivy bit her lip and fidgeted with the spoon, and for a moment she looked so much like Rowen that it took Belle’s breath away. Her little girl wasn’t comfortable, and that made Belle angry. She didn’t need to know his secrets. She didn’t care for them, not in the least. But putting her girl in such a position… That was a no go.

“It’s ok, darling. You don’t need to tell me.” She kissed Ivy, and after a while, her daughter relaxed. But Belle was tense, restless, and she knew that she needed to run. She had to wait, though, until her father closed the shop, so he could stay with Ivy, who was still grounded. It was already after six when she finally could go for her run, and the restlessness was almost suffocating her.

She took the path through the woods, more of a cross-country route, and when she left the woods behind, she was covered in sweat and mud, and, once again, spitting mad. Running used to make her happy, used to help her to run her worries out of her system. Now it only ever achieved to make her angrier. So, once again, she took the route leading past Rowen’s house.

She smelled the whiskey in his breath when he opened the door, and it almost made her recoil. Rowen looked her up and down, lifting a brow, and his speech was close to slurred – certainly less clear than she had ever heard him – when he graveled out her name.

“Belle. So you’ve been running again, huh? What did I do this time?”

For a moment, Belle forgot her rage. There was so much aggression in his stance, in his eyes, in his eyebrows drawn together, that it was as if they never got back together at all. As if this was the day after he found out about Ivy. He looked at her as if he hated her, and Belle’s stomach dropped. This was not what she had expected. Oblivion, ignorance, unawareness, yes. Seeing him this angry achieved what her run had not managed to do: She grew cold, calm, and pulled her walls up.

“Are you drunk?”

“Pissed as a newt.” His grin was slightly lopsided, and he swayed.

“Why?”

“Nostalgia, I s’pose. So, you’re here to yell at me, aren’t you? Do you wanna do it on the porch? Or do you wanna come in?”

Belle swallowed, and pushed past him. She wanted to march straight into the living room, but a sharp command held her back.

“Take off those muddy shoes, will you?”

Belle looked down at her feet. With a shrug, she kicked them off, across the hall, ignoring his frown. But he didn’t say a thing, instead he gestured to his study. How peculiar, she thought, that she still knew the layout of his house as if it had been yesterday that she’d last been there (and been anywhere else than the hall or the living room). He followed her, but he remained standing in the door, and it was with a shiver that Belle realized he was blocking her way out.

“Ivy is completely confused and nervous because of a secret you told her.”

His face darkened. “Did she tell you about it?”

“No. Rowen, I’m not interested in your secret. But you can’t expect Ivy to keep things you tell her to herself. She’s afraid you’ll be mad at her when she accidentally betrays your secret, and nervous because she doesn’t want to keep things from me.”

“Did she say that?”

“No, of course not. But I’m her mother. I know these things.”

Rowen left his place at the door, moving with too much force for Belle to feel safe, but he didn’t step to her. Instead, he limped to a small table and poured himself another whiskey. “And I’m not her father and therefore don’t know what’s best for her, is it that you want to say?”

“No! Just… Don’t be mad at her. That’s all.” She needed to go. Talking with him in this state was impossible, and there was a chance he wouldn’t even remember. He looked like he had been drinking for a while now. “Rowen… what happened?”

His lips twitched, and he downed his whiskey in one large gulp before he answered. “Regret. That’s all.”

Belle moved towards the door, determined to leave. Rowen watched her, silently, and it was this that made it impossible for her to go. He would not hold her back, would not ask anything of her, despite the fact that he was clearly suffering. He needed her. And yet, he would never admit it. “Do you want to tell me what it is you regret?”

“No.” He turned, wanted to pull the stopper out of the whiskey bottle once again, but Belle stepped at his side and stilled his hand. Probably not the best idea to stay. And he was a grown man. He should be able to handle it. Still, her heart ached looking at him, and she couldn’t get herself to leave. Which didn’t mean she would let him anywhere close to her heart now. He was dangerous.

“Would you please let me have my whiskey?”, he gnarled, but he didn’t move to end their contact, to shake off her palm on the back of his hand. But his skin seemed to grow stings as he looked down to her hand, and it prickled under her touch. Or maybe it was her own skin that prickled.

“Darling, I worry about you. Let’s sit on the couch for a while, ok? Maybe I can make you a tea.” Belle pulled his hand away from the bottle, and pulled him with her out of his study, and to the living room. He followed her like a child, sulking and on the verge of putting his foot down and refusing, but Belle managed to maneuver him to the couch.

“I’m not a baby”, he slurred, when she pulled him down with her and wrapped her arms around him, but Belle just pulled his head down to her chest and held him. He didn’t resist, and he even put an arm around her waist when she started to stroke his hair.

“I’ve never seen you like this, Rowen. Are you sure you’re alright?”

“You reek.”

Belle rolled her eyes. He wasn’t even subtle in refusing to talk about what had unsettled him so much. “Yeah, I’ve been running and just came here to yell at you.”

“I knew it. Is it already over? I admit I can’t remember…” He added a few extra syllables, and Belle almost giggled.

“Yes. I yelled at you so loud and long that the neighbors threatened to call the cops, and you threatened to burn down their house.”

“That doesn’t sound like me.” He rubbed his cheek along the neckline of her shirt, and his stubble rubbed her skin red. She liked it. But when he looked up, she had to hold her breath, because he smelled enough of booze to make her drunk by proximity. She nearly kicked him off the couch.

“Maybe I should make you your tea now.”

“Don’t forget to add a little rum.” He smiled, blind to her eye-roll.

“God, Rowen, I think you’ve had enough.” Belle wriggled from the couch and brushed his hands away when he wanted to hold her back.

“I don’t think so… I still have this black hole inside my chest…”

Belle almost overheard him, since she was already halfway in the kitchen, and she hesitated for a moment. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to leave him at all, but she could hardly carry him to her own house. Let alone let him anywhere near Ivy in that state. Without a second thought, she picked up the phone in the hallway and called her father, asking him to watch Ivy overnight. He wasn’t thrilled, but he didn’t refuse either. And when she hung up again and entered the kitchen, she was glad that she had made the decision to stay.

On the otherwise speckless, empty counter stood an urn, small, radiating a coldness, hopelessness that made it hard to breathe. Belle stepped closer, almost reluctant to come near that thing. Maybe it was just a pet… some people cremated their pets and kept them in urns. Maybe Rowen once owned a dog, or a cat, or maybe a pet alligator… But she knew it couldn’t be a pet. No. Rowen was too drunk, too beside himself, and this urn meant something else. This morning, Ivy had yelled at him, told him how much she hated him. And he had told her a secret. And decided that it was better to step back, give them a little room to breathe. And then he went home and drank himself into oblivion. No, this urn didn’t hold a pet, and as she took that last step to the counter and lifted a hand to trace the letters engraved into the metal, swimming before her eyes, she knew that she didn’t want to know whose ashes were in that urn.

“Did you get lost?”

Belle whirled around, finding Rowen leaning against the doorframe, trying his best to look unfazed and yet failing miserably. His tie was loose, his eyes trying too hard to focus, and his hair mussed.

“No, I… I just called my father to tell him that I’ll stay with you overnight, that’s all…” Belle tried to shield the urn on the counter behind her with her body, because she sensed that Rowen had forgotten about it. And he probably didn’t want her to see it. “Go back and rest on the couch, darling. I’m with you in a minute.”

Rowen pushed himself off the doorframe and staggered into the room, forcing his face into a smile that probably should be seductive. “I always wanted to love you in my kitchen.”

“I don’t think that you’re up to that at the moment, darling. Besides, you did love me in your kitchen once.”

He paused, swaying on his feet, and furrowed his brows. “Right… I think I remember… didn’t I spank you with a cooking spoon back then?”

Belle blushed, and wished she hadn’t brought it up. “You did. Right before you bent me over the table. Now, go back into the living room, I’ll be back with you in a minute.”

“I’m sorry that I treated you like that, Belle. I’m a terrible man. You shouldn’t waste your life on me.”

Belle inhaled and tried to keep her composure. “Darling, I didn’t find it terrible back then. I wouldn’t want you to treat me like that now, and I know you wouldn’t. Also, I’m not wasting my life when I’m with you. Go back to the couch now.”

“I love you Belle. I really don’t deserve you.” His bottom lip trembled, and Belle feared he would start to cry, but then he swayed around and started for the door, and Belle exhaled, grabbing the counter with the relief washing over her. It was just one tiny moment too soon, because he turned back, wanting to add something, but it never made it to his lips. When Belle had faltered in relief, she had shifted, and when he turned around again, his eyes fell on the urn, now in plain sight, and he drained of color when he remembered that it was there. Belle saw exactly the moment he realized that it had been there all the time, and saw exactly the conclusion he drew. The wrong one, of course.

“Are you spying on me, Belle?” He took a staggering step back towards her, and Belle tried to let it look as if she was just starting the preparations for tea when she brought the counter between them.

“Of course not.” She turned on the water to fill the kettle, and out of the corner of her eyes watched as Rowen took up the urn, with trembling hands, observing it, as if he feared she had harmed it, scratched its surface or something. Rubbed his sleeve cuff over it, before he pressed it to his chest, cradled it like a hot water bottle. Belle stared at the kettle after putting it on the stove and tried to figure out how to go on. The silence was suffocating, and she jumped a little when Rowen put the urn back onto the counter with a metallic clink.

“Go on, pry. I know it’s killing you not to ask.” He sounded as if he was spitting acid, as if it was _her_ fault, as if she had actively _wanted_ to see that black hole inside him, his secret that he had been guarding so jealously.

“It’s not as if I roamed your cabinets to find something. This urn stood here on the counter, in plain sight when I came in.” Belle despised the need to defend herself, despised that he reacted this aggressive to the imagined invasion of his privacy, and for a moment she wondered if it was wise to credit his reaction to the alcohol clouding his senses.

“I know that. But I don’t know why you felt you had to hide that you saw it.”

“Isn’t that obvious? There is an urn in your kitchen, you’re drunk, and you said yourself you don’t want to tell me why. I figured you didn’t want me to know about… it.” It pained her to call his loss an “it”, but what else could she call it? Who was it that he had lost, and had loved so much that he didn’t even want to share the fact that this someone ever existed? All of a sudden, she _did_ want to know his secret. “Alright. Who is it?”

“I knew you were dying to ask.” He twisted his lips into a smile that was more a snarl than anything, cold and cruel, and Belle was glad that the counter still was between them.

“I don’t like it when you’re drunk. You get completely unreasonable.”

“True, true. Alright. I told Ivy about it, and obviously that makes me the bad guy. A long time ago, long before I came to Storybrooke, I had a girlfriend, and a son.” He placed a hand on the lid of the urn, and Belle wished she had not asked. Wished she was anywhere but in this kitchen. Anywhere but here.

“What happened?”, she asked, almost too hoarse to speak.

“I went to law school, and she accused me to hold her back. To be in the way of her career, because I had gotten her pregnant and ‘forced’ her to stay home with the child, because we didn’t have enough money to pay for childcare. Or anything, really. She was always nagging, always unhappy. I thought it would make it better if we would leave the city for a few days. Relax, go somewhere else, have a little vacation. It only got worse. She was yelling at me while I was driving, and I overlooked a car coming from the right. It hit the passenger side. She was instantly dead.” Rowen paused, turned the urn on the marble counter, traced its curves. Belle didn’t dare to speak. The silence hung thick between them, and not even the whistle of the kettle, growing louder, sharper, could penetrate it. Belle flinched when he let out a bitter laugh.

“I wasn’t even sad. Or, not for long. I despised her even after her death, for causing me this injury that meant I would need a cane for the rest of my life. Despised her even more for not securing our baby boy properly in the back of the car. The impact of the accident killed him. All I wanted was a little respite, a few days of peace. Instead I lost it all.”

“Why did you never tell me about it?” Belle could only whisper, and even that seemed too loud, too shrill. It took her a moment to realize that it was the kettle, still whistling, that caused the shrill noise. She turned off the heat, but she didn’t pour the water into the teapot at once.

“And what would have been the use of that? You had your life ahead of you. Why burden you with my past?”

“Maybe I would have understood better why you were pushing me away so hard.”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference.”

“For me it would have.”

He stared at her, swaying, and he seemed to have difficulties to focus on her. “I’d like to sleep now. You can let yourself out.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Rowen narrowed his eyes, looked as if he contemplated to throw her out. But then, with a deep sigh, he gave in. “Very well… I might need help with undressing anyways… Or with getting up the stairs…” He reached for the counter, and Belle hurried to round it and wrap an arm around his waist to support him. He was breathing hard, and she only hoped he wouldn’t be sick on their way up the stairs.

She still knew the way to his bedroom, would know it with closed eyes and in her sleep, and she dragged Rowen along, to his bed, where he slumped down, a picture of misery. He let her handle him like a child, lifting his arms and legs as she undressed him, and while Belle roamed his walk-in for a pajama, he sank to his side on the bed, his feet still on the floor, and fell asleep. Instead of waking him up again, Belle lifted his feet onto the bed, covered him with a blanket, and, after slipping out of her workout clothes and into his pajamas, she wrapped herself around him to hold him. And while she held him, she tried not to think too hard about what it meant that he once had been a father. That he had held on to the ashes of one child and had not known about another child for ten years. Belle held him, and tried to keep her heart from breaking. Yes, Rowen had every reason to hate her. And she didn’t come up with a single reason why he didn’t…


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Mention of suicide. Minor character death.

Rowen awoke with a pounding headache and the burning question at what point exactly he had eaten his Persian rug, and possibly the carpet on the bathroom floor for dessert. It was either that, or his tongue had turned into a dead raccoon over night. Which would explain the fuzzy feeling and the taste in his mouth. He wanted to turn – or rather, knew he should probably turn to his side and get up, despite the feeling of being nailed down to the bed – but all he managed was a groan, and the heaviness that drove him into the ground (had he even made it to his bed, or was he sleeping on the floor, with his tongue glued to the rug, because that could be another explanation for the dryness of his throat) increased and made it its goal to suffocate him. Maybe he should just stay where he was and wait for death to claim him. Yes. That sounded like the best course of action. Only that just then, when he decided to await death, something jerked at his side, and he was pretty sure that it was none of his own limbs. That belief strengthened when the flailing of limbs was followed by a thud, and a strangled squeak. Resisting the urge to throw up, he turned into the direction of the commotion, but the bed beside him was empty. Just when he thought it had been a dream (or maybe the ghost of the dead raccoon in his mouth), a shock of dark hair surfaced from the floor beside his bed, followed by… Belle, he supposed, though she could be a bear ripped out of hibernation by a nosy wanderer, judging by the face she made.

“Belle?”, he croaked, and the bear growled at him. Not Belle, then.

“Morning.”

“What are you doing on the floor?” The bear was talking, so he could just as well ask what it was doing.

“I just fell out of bed, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Did you sleep in my bed?”

Belle glared at him from under the mess of her hair, and Rowen noticed that she was wearing one of his pajamas. That answered his question then.

“I did.”

“All night?”

“Yeah. All night.” She climbed back into bed, and Rowen admired the way his pajama drooped at the front when she crawled towards him, granting him a view down to her navel. Too bad that his head was exploding… But maybe she could suck his headache out through… Before he could follow the trail of his thoughts to their end, a wave of nausea seized him, and he threw himself out of bed and towards the bathroom, dragging his bad leg after him, unable to curse, because he feared that opening his mouth would be followed by projectile vomiting. When he finally returned to the bedroom – after brushing his teeth for ten minutes to get rid of the taste and the stench – he mused that he much rather be dead than… whatever he was now. Certainly not alive. And no one would miss him, since his daughter didn’t exactly like him anyways, and the only other living person that meant something to him – Belle – would be much better off without him. Yes, his reasons for pursuing this relationship were purely egoistical, and when he let himself fall onto the mattress, slumping an arm across his face to shut out a) the light and b) Belle’s eyes twinkling with amusement, he contemplated over ways to make her so angry that she took pity on him and killed him.

“Bad day?”, she asked, and Rowen groaned.

“You have no idea.”

“Then I guess it’s a bad time to ask you about this picture…” There was a tone in her voice that registered with him, and he struggled up to sit. Maybe what he had thought to be amusement was something else entirely. He looked her over and tried to determine what it was that dyed her voice. She sat cross-legged beside him, in her lap the photography he had taken of her all those years ago. He had not put it away again last time he looked at it, and she must have found it on his nightstand.

“Belle…”

“Did you keep it all those years?”

“You make it sound like a century. Of course I kept it. It was the only picture I had of you.” He reached for the picture, but Belle brought it out of his reach.

“It shows the important aspects of our relationship back then quite clearly.” There was something raw in her voice, and although he was sure he would throw up again if he moved to much, he struggled to his knees and caught her wrist, pulling her hand with the picture to his chest. But he looked at her, not the photography, and locked eyes with her.

“That changed, Belle. I’m not that man anymore. You are what is most important to me, all of you.”

“I just… I don’t understand what made you change. What happened between now and then to make you let go of that man?”

Rowen lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. It pained him to see her doubts, although he didn’t reproach her for them. The times when she had easily trusted and allowed him to make her his toy, his mirror to bathe in her reverence, were long gone, like dust in the wind. “I had a long time to think, and to miss you. I admit that it got to my head how you used to look up to me. I reveled in your admiration, and in the effect I had on you. That wasn’t something I was used to.”

“So… you no longer want me to be like that? To bend to your wishes and worship the very ground you walk on?”

“I was really that bad, huh?” It was a rhetorical question. Her undisguised admiration, her brave reverie had brought out the worst in him. After years of contempt and detestation thrown his way, he wanted to drown in her love. Sending her away had just as much been for his own sake as it had been for hers. He had gone cold turkey. It worried him, now, to think about her adoration as something he had been addicted to. Maybe he would go down the same road again. Let the warmth and comfort of being loved and looked up to overtake him. He pressed a kiss to her wrist. “I’ll destroy it if you want.”

A sad smile crooked up the corner of her mouth, only for a moment. “There’s no need. It’s actually a beautiful picture. But I think we should take some more. Do you still have the camera?”

“I do, actually.” He took the photography, let it flutter to the floor, and caught her face, pulling her close for a kiss. “Are you sure you want to allow me to take pictures of you?”

“Well, only if you let me take some of you, too, of course.” She smiled, a bright, real smile, then, and Rowen’s chest grew tight.

“Anything for you.” Another kiss, to feel her smile under his lips. Then he remembered how he had been ripped out of sleep. “Why did you fall out of bed?”

The smile fell from her face again, and for a moment he expected her to just wave it off, act as if nothing had happened. “I had a dream. Sometimes I move so much with my dreams that I fall out of bed.”

“What kind of dream? Did you ride a dragon?”

Belle pulled away, and fixed her eyes on her hands in her lap. He had almost forgotten the way she had avoided eye-contact when they first met again, and by now, he took it as a sign that she didn’t feel comfortable. A sign of fear.

“Belle, you can tell me. It was just a dream, wasn’t it?”

“Not really. It mostly happens when someone else sleeps in bed with me. I panic. That’s all.” She slipped out of bed and started to take off his pajama. Short, erratic movements, still avoiding his eyes. He didn’t like it. But he didn’t want to make it worse by prying. She would tell him, eventually. She dropped his pajama on the floor, allowing him to study her naked body when she searched for her clothes. One day, he told himself, he would kiss every single leaf, every single branch, every single crack in the bark of the tree on her back.

“By the way, am I allowed to touch myself again?”, he asked, when his thoughts wandered from kissing to something else. Belle paused fastening her sports bra and tilted her head.

“You really didn’t? After I told you not to?”

“Would I ask if I had?” It hadn’t been easy (though it was easier now, hung over as he was, but that wouldn’t last for forever), but he had followed her wish. He couldn’t even say why. Belle bit her lip, her face lighting up in a way that shot right to his loins, despite the pounding headache, and she came back to the bed, in her underwear, climbing his lap to straddle him. Her hair tickled him, and her closeness made him forget his headache, even more so when he splayed his hands over her back and felt her warm skin under his palms.

“Such a good boy”, she whispered, breathing over his ear, and trailing kisses along his jaw, and before he had time to process his reaction to her words – a maelstrom of heat and hunger and yearning gurgling inside his abdomen – his cock stood to attention, pressing up against her. He wrapped his arms around her, tightly, to hold her as close as possible, but Belle bent back, away from him.

“Can I ask you something? About your son?”

Her question brought back the headache, and he had to swallow the nausea rising in his throat. “Go ahead”, he croaked, but he closed his eyes and pressed his face against her chest, unable to face her.

“How old was he? When… it happened?”

“Eleven months. He just had his first tooth. I was so proud of him, and his smile was the sweetest thing imaginable, with his single tooth. All the other babies had already three or four teeth, but he had only that one.”

Belle was quiet for a while, raking through his hair and holding his head against her. Somehow her chest was wet, and he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him when he realized that it was from his tears. “I’m so sorry, darling”, she whispered, and Rowen held his breath to somehow stop the tears from falling.

“I am, too. It’s something you don’t forget. A wound that never closes.”

“I know. I lost two babies, long before they were due, but it’s still painful. I already felt them moving inside me… It’s something you can’t get over.”

“Aren’t we two poor, pathetic souls?”

Belle laughed, a silent shudder of her skin and a gush of air, not more, and her fingers stilled on his scalp. “We’re cut out for each other, don’t you think? As if we were made for each other…”

Rowen pressed his lips to the swell of her breast, and sucked in a little skin, determined to leave a mark. He let go with a plop. “We are.”

“You’re cute…” She bent forward to kiss him, but just before her lips touched his, she paused. “Shit. It’s so late already. I have to go home, so Dad can leave for the shop.” She rolled off his lap and slipped through his fingers, and hopped into her leggings. She had been running, he remembered vaguely, so she had to dress in her workout clothes again.

“Take my shirt”, he said, before he could think about it, and the idea alone of Belle wearing his clothes squeezed his heart inside his chest and tied it up with a pretty bow out of his heartstrings. And it reminded him that she had not yet answered his question. The hunger in his loins blazed up when she slipped into his shirt, burgundy red, and as he watched her button it up, he longed to take himself in hand to soothe the tightness and the tension, just for a bit…

“We’ll talk again about a photo-session, darling”, Belle said as she bent down for a quick kiss, and she was out of reach again before his hands made it up to her face. All that was left to him was a remembrance of her hair brushing over his skin. He glanced at the clock on his nightstand. Only 6.45. With a groan, he buried himself in his pillows again and decided that this was the perfect Saturday morning to keep his shop closed and not leave the bed before noon. He didn’t want to go down, where the urn still sat on the counter in the kitchen, to remind him of a past too painful to face. He drifted off to sleep again, after a while, and resurfaced around noon, to a constant, shrill noise that didn’t want to go away.

The door bell.

Rowen put on a robe (hoping it wasn’t Belle at the door and she would never see that special piece of clothing on him, because it looked decidedly porny with its purple, shimmery satin and the black dragon on its back), and dragged himself down and to the door, deciding to evict whoever was nagging him. But when he opened the door and found Belle and Ivy there, he dropped the decision again. Although…

“Move in with me.”

Belle gaped at him, and he couldn’t even blame her for it. Only when she clapped her mouth shut and narrowed her eyes at him, and then at the pot she held outstretched in her hands did he realize that “hello” would probably have been the better way to greet her.

“Are you still drunk?”, she asked, and Ivy glanced at him from behind her mother’s back, full of contempt.

“I suppose I am. What’s in the pot?”

“Soup.” Belle pushed past him, Ivy in tow, and the girl looked around, soaking up the interior of his house like a sponge as she followed her mother to the kitchen. Belle placed the pot with soup on the counter, beside the urn of his son, and he hurried to her side to save his son from the indignity of resting next to stewed and strained vegetables.

“Why is your house pink?”, Ivy asked, while he turned the metal urn in his hands.

“Salmon.”

“But fish are grey or silver.”

Rowen crinkled his forehead while he contemplated why exactly the color of his house was called salmon and if he wanted to explain to Ivy why this shade of pink was called salmon. And he compared the color of his house to the color of Belle’s sex when it was flushed with desire. Another trail of thought he couldn’t (and shouldn’t, probably) share with anyone. His blood definitely didn’t contain enough alcohol at the moment. “Wouldn’t you want to live in a pink house?”

“I thought it’s salmon.”

“No one is moving into anyone’s house.” Belle glared at him. She was right, of course. He didn’t even know where this idea had come from. It was too soon.

“I blame the hangover”, he murmured, and climbed onto one of the barstools to sit at the kitchen counter. Ivy watched him, and her scrutiny made an itch bloom between his shoulder blades. He pulled the front of his robe tighter and tried to cover his legs, while his daughter climbed the barstool beside him.

“There is a crocodile on your dress.” The way she stated this observation was almost disconcerting. She would make a great headmistress for a school on day. The talent to stew people in their own sweat was already there.

“It’s a robe.” His eyes found Belle, who had a suspicious glow on her cheeks, and was trying to chew off her bottom lip. At least one of them was having fun.

“What’s in the vase?” Ivy pointed at the urn in his grip, and Rowen wished he had placed it somewhere safe. Never gotten it out of the cabinet in his living room in the first place.

“It’s an urn.” He placed it on the counter again, despite the pot with soup still standing there and smelling too strongly for his stomach. Belle was roaming his cabinets for bowls, and he watched her for a moment before he continued. “It holds the ashes of my son. Your brother. Bae.”

“His name was Bae?” Ivy lifted a hand and traced the floral pattern on the urn with her fingertips.

“Baelfire.”

Ivy was quiet for a while, examining the urn, and Rowen noticed that Belle was watching her daughter, two bowls in her hands, just as lost in thought as Ivy. But the silence wasn’t uncomfortable, and he wondered over his lack of irritation over them flocking around his dead son. It seemed so… right. He wondered if this was how a family was supposed to feel.

“How long has he been in that vase?”, Ivy asked, pulling back her hand. It was as if a spell was broken, and everyone suddenly moved, after having slept for a century. Belle placed bowls in front of him and Ivy and ladled soup into them.

“Urn. Twenty-five years.”

“So long already?” Ivy sounded sad, and stared into her bowl. Then she seemed to gather her courage. “I don’t think I would like to be in a metal vase for that long. I’d like to be free.”

Rowen reached for the urn again, as if he needed to protect it. As if Ivy would hop from her stool, grab it and run off with it.

“Ivy, eat your soup.” Belle pushed the bowl towards her daughter again, and Ivy wrinkled her nose. But she grabbed her spoon and started scooping soup into her mouth, and after a moment, when he felt it was safe to let go of the urn again, Rowen did the same. Something warm to fill his belly was actually a good idea.

“That’s… good”, he praised, although it was a lie, but Belle blushed, and smiled, and that was worth eating soup that smelled of old cheese and tasted like an anthill. When they were finished eating, Belle sent Ivy out into the garden to explore, and started to make tea for them. Rowen watched her in silence until he finally had a cup of tea to hold on to. He inhaled, and decided to take the plunge.

“I meant what I said earlier. I would like to live with you and Ivy.”

“Rowen, that’s awfully soon. We just decided to try this relationship thing again. We spent two… three nights with each other. I don’t think we’re ready. And didn’t you say yourself that we were moving too fast for Ivy?”

“I know.” He looked at the urn of his son, and for a moment it was too hard to breathe. “But I also know how fast it all can be over, and the idea not to have made the most out of the time we were given kills me. I don’t want to spend a single day more than I absolutely must without the two of you.”

“Rowen…”

“Belle, I want to be with you. I would ask you to marry me, but I guess you would say no, so I rather not ask. Not yet, anyways.”

“Rowen, you’re still hung over. You can’t mean that.”

“Why not? I love you, you love me, we have a kid together, and you said yourself, we’re cut out for each other.” It became harder and harder to breathe when she stepped back, farther away with each word that tumbled over his lips, and he knew that he should just shut up. That this was too much, too soon, asking more than she would be able to bear, and yet he couldn’t stop himself. He didn’t want to lose her or his daughter ever again.

“Rowen, please stop… Please.” Her voice was thick, hoarse, and there was a look close to panic on her face. As if she, too, was unable to breathe. “Please stop.” 

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I forgot that it is too much to ask you to trust me.” He stared at the teacup in his hands and longed to throw it against the wall. Smash it. Do something to get rid of the wretched feeling inside his chest.

“Not this again. Please.” She turned, walked to the glass door leading outside and called for Ivy. “We’re going home. Call me when you’re no longer drunk.”

He didn’t find the words to hold her back, or to point out that he was actually stone-cold sober, and when she was gone, he poured himself another whisky. What better way to cure a hangover than a new bout of inebriety? He couldn’t even blame her for fleeing him and his madness.

He still wasn’t ready to call her on Sunday evening, and his heart lurched inside his chest when the phone rang and Belle greeted him with a trembling “hey”. And in the following silence, his mind spun with questions, wondering for the reason of her call. She had missed him. She loved him and changed her mind, wanted to move in with him. She loved him and changed her mind and wanted to marry him and spend the rest of her life with him. Each and every single one of these possibilities raced inside his head, leaving him in a swirling mess, and all he managed was a “hey” in return, just as breathless and trembling as hers.

“Greg killed himself. I have to go to LA.”

And all his racing thoughts came to a halt, leaving him with a vacuum inside his head and the sordid guilt of relief over the death of his competitor for his daughter’s heart. “I’m coming with you”, he said, and Belle started to sob uncontrollably.


	21. Chapter 21

Belle and Ivy looked tiny beside the grave, all in black, and pale as death. Rowen’s heart ached, for both of them. Belle was no longer crying; she had stopped in the plane, and the tears had been replaced by a coldness that scared Rowen almost more than the helpless sobbing it followed. The funeral took forever, and despite being the exiled ex-wife, Belle had to accept a long succession of condolences. She accepted them all without showing any sign of emotion. But the whole time, her hand rested on Ivy’s shoulder, and Rowen was sure that this was the only thing holding his little girl upright. They didn’t speak until they were back in the hotel. Belle had suggested to stay in the house, since it fell to her to take care of Mr. Gaston’s belongings, but Rowen had been able to convince her otherwise. He paid for the hotel, and thereby rendered her biggest argument invalid. He didn’t like the idea of Ivy being forced to face Mr. Gaston’s ghost, all the memories living in the fancy house, along with the smell of disinfectant and chlorine bleach left behind from the cleaning company. Mr. Gaston lay in his own blood for three days before his cleaning lady found him, floating peacefully in his bathtub, and Rowen found that this wasn’t an image his daughter needed to carry around.

Apparently Belle had resigned any claims on Gaston’s fortune, and Rowen wondered how she could have been so stupid. “You should have spoken to a lawyer before signing anything”, he said, and apologised immediately when Belle’s face turned waxen and her eyes were bright with rage.

“Do you think I don’t know that? But what’s done is done.”

Rowen swallowed the words that weighed his tongue down, because she was right. There was nothing to be done about it. Belle looked at him, waiting for him to pick that fight she seemed to crave right now, but he denied her that, too. If she needed to yell at him, at anyone, then he at least wanted to wait until Ivy was asleep in her room. It were long hours until then, hours in which Belle sifted through paperwork and tried to make sense of something that was completely senseless. It was Rowen who tucked Ivy in, squeezing her shoulder, and trying to contain the sadness that filled him like mist, cold and gentle, when she turned her head away from him and didn’t say a word.

When he returned to the living room of their suite, Belle was still poring over paperwork, her eyes red and raw. Letters, notes, bills. Nothing that gave any hint as to why her ex-husband exited his life. Rowen stepped to her, careful, not sure how she would take his approach, and started to massage her shoulders. Raked through her hair and pulled her back to lean against him.

“There’s nothing in there. I just… I don’t understand why he did it.” She sounded exhausted, hopeless, and Rowen rubbed little circles to loosen up her hard muscles, hoping to help her relax.

“Sometimes there is no apparent reason, and for all we know, a person should be happy and content. And still they aren’t.”

“But why did he never say anything? Why did he just… throw us out like trash, cut all ties, and never look back? It doesn’t make sense.” Her voice was shaking, and Rowen clasped her arms to pull her to her feet.

“Sweetheart, it’s time to stop. You’ve brooded for too long over these bills and notes and shopping lists. Take a break.”

“But I need to know what happened.” Belle resisted his gentle tug, and Rowen already saw himself attempting to toss her over his shoulder.

“You won’t find the reason in here, darling. And those papers will still be there tomorrow. You need to sleep.” She still resisted, but Rowen managed to navigate her into the bedroom, picking up the open bottle of wine on their way, and she even allowed him to push her down on the bed and peel her out of her black dress.

“Did you mean what you said?”, Belle asked, when he was kneeling at her feet and disentangling her from her pantyhose, and he had to pause for a moment.

“Mean what?”

“That life is too short and you don’t want to spend a single day longer without us than you have to?”

“Oh, that.” Rowen concentrated on pulling the flimsy pantyhose over her feet, and he tried for a long minute to get it folded, before he gave up and just tossed it over his shoulder as the knot that it was. Crawled onto the bed and fumbled with the closure of her bra. It was easier to answer when he wasn’t facing her. “Absolutely. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life without you. Or Ivy.”

“So you really want to marry me?” Belle slipped out of her bra, and turned around. Didn’t allow him not to look at her.

“If it is what you want. We don’t have to marry, if you rather stay free.”

“I don’t know. It’s an awfully big commitment. Maybe you realize that you can’t accept me the way I am. Maybe you want to change me.” She bent to the side, taking up the wine and drinking directly from the bottle. Rowen started to unbutton his shirt, trying to find words that wouldn’t cause her to run away.

“You sound really afraid of that. A relationship means compromising.”

“Compromising, yes. I can do that. But if compromising means we have to change in order to become the person the other wants to be with, then it’s not something I want.”

“Why do you think I want to change you?” He shrugged out of his shirt, and leant over, pressing a kiss to her lips and moving her to lie down with nothing but the pressure of his lips. Stretched out at her side and caressed her hip while he placed kisses on her forehead, her eyebrows, and her eyelids, like butterflies landing on her skin.

“I just can’t imagine you to want me, broken and twisted like I am.” Her murmur was hardly more than a breath, as if it was too difficult to say those words out loud, and she half hoped he wouldn’t hear them.

“Oh Belle. All I want is for you to be happy. I don’t care if that is with or without me, as long as it is what’s best for you.”

“When did you become so noble?”

“I’m not. I’m a true egoist, to be honest. And the thing that makes me happy is when you are happy.”

“Those are not the words of an egoist. You sound like a sappy, hopeless romantic.”

“Do I, now?” He rolled half on top of her to kiss her properly, and Belle gasped into his mouth when he hooked his fingers into the elastic of her panties and yanked them down. “If you want me to stop, I’ll stop. I just want to help you unwind, but if you rather not sleep with me because of your husband, I understand.”

“Oh, shut up. That bastard can go to hell and rot there.” Belle’s voice was thick with need, and Rowen draped her legs over his shoulder, both on one side, and brushed his thumb over her warm folds, just tickling her for a start.

“Are you still hurt because your marriage didn’t work out?”, Rowen asked, between kissing her knee and massaging her sex, until he could feel the first dew of arousal coating his fingertips.

“No. I’m mad because he treated us like crap and then just took the express road out of this life. I’m furious because he was a bastard and broke the promise he gave us once, and I wish I could bring him back to life to kick his balls to the north pole and back because he raped me, blackmailed me into staying with him as long as he needed me and, worst of all, persuaded me to believe we were friends just before he cast me out.”

Her words were like ice, filling Rowen to the brim, and he pulled his fingers back, hardly able to breathe, much less to touch her. “He did what?”

Belle licked her lips and met his eyes, and he could see that she was close to a panic. He slipped her legs from his shoulder, sat up, and Belle skidded back and did the same, hugging her knees.

“I never wanted to tell you… I was afraid of what you would do to him. But now that he’s dead…”

“He raped you.”

“Only once.”

“And you think that makes it better, that it was _only_ once?” He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood, slipping back into his shirt, starting to button up again.

“What are you doing? Can’t be with someone like me, someone soiled like me?” Her eyes were huge, bright, and his stomach lurched at her question.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m dressing to go back to the graveyard and piss on that bastard’s grave.” He didn’t care that he got his buttons all wrong. Belle crawled out of bed, and he expected her to argue, to hold him back. Instead she crossed the room and rummaged through her suitcase, extracting jeans and a shirt. Now it was his turn to ask what she was doing.

“Do you think I let you go and piss on my ex-husband’s grave without going with you and participating? Why should you have all the fun?”   

“Belle, you can’t pee on a grave…”

“Why not?”

“You’re a woman…”

Belle stared at him as if there was no sense whatsoever in his objection, as if he just suggested to lasso a whale and ride to the moon with it. “And?”

“You can’t pee standing.” It was the first thing that came to his mind, but even he could see that it was a rather weak argument. Belle raised a brow at him and slipped her shirt over her head.

“Watch me”, she said, and after a moment, he gave in.

“What about Ivy?”

“We write her a note in case she wakes up. But she shouldn’t wake up, and we won’t need that long, I think.” She pulled up her jeans, and took another swallow from the bottle of wine. “Ammunition”, she said, with a shrug, and Rowen mused that this was probably the worst, most unfitting moment in the history of mankind to realize how madly he was in love with this woman. Well, maybe it would have been a little more out of place if he had already been pissing on her ex-husband’s grave.

“What?”, Belle asked, and he realized that he had been staring at her in a trance.

“I love you.”

Her lips twisted into a lopsided, stupid smile, more beautiful than anything he’d ever seen, and then she broke out into a giggle. “Are we really going to do this?”

“Of course. If I have to go to prison, then let it at least be for a good cause, like the desecration of a grave. Anything less would be a disappointment.”

In the end, they didn’t get caught, although it was a close call, and they had to duck behind a large headstone to avoid being seen. They had taken turns in keeping watch while they did the deed (and Rowen was almost sure that he somehow had fallen back through time and turned into a teenager again), and Belle’s manic giggle almost betrayed their hiding place behind Martha Lebowski’s last resting place.

“Shouldn’t we be forgiving of those who wronged us?”, Belle wondered, staring up at him while he watched out for the security guard (thank god that one was a lazy one), and Rowen snorted.

“Yeah I would have preferred to piss on him while he still was alive, but alas. Also, some things shouldn’t be forgiven, in my opinion.”

“Like… what he did to me?” The hysteric edge was gone from her voice, and Rowen sank down beside her, leaning against Martha Lebowski, _beloved mother and wife_ , taking the bottle of wine Belle had refused to let go of and swallowing down a large swig of wine that had the same temperature as the fresh decoration of Mr. Gaston’s grave when it left his body.

“Yeah. Like that. Or like not taking care that your baby is properly fastened in the car seat.”

For a moment, they stared at the ground, silent and with heavy hearts, but then Belle took his hand and squeezed. Rowen ripped his pants when they climbed over the fence to leave the graveyard again, and his limp was heavier than usual, slowing him down. But the adrenaline rushing through his veins made up for that. They practically fell through the door into their suite, kissing and tugging and tearing each other’s clothes off, and he was hardly able to let go of her for long enough that she could check up on Ivy. Their daughter slept like an angel; a dark angel, maybe, with ashen skin and deep shadows beneath her eyes, but at least she slept, thrown into the realms of sleep by the exhaustion of the last days.

“I missed so much with her”, Rowen whispered, when they looked at Ivy from the door, and Belle squeezed his hand once more. A thought struck him, sitting down on his lungs and stopping him from breathing, and he had to pull Belle away from the door, into his arms, to press his lips on hers, a desperate kiss to drive away the fear and the tightness that gouged his bones. “I love you, Belle, and I forgive you. Don’t think I would ever want to… to…” He couldn’t end his sentence, and Belle circled his waist and pressed her face to his breastbone.

“I know. And that’s better, because that is really none of my kinks.”

He broke out in helpless laughter, and buried his face in her hair to stifle it. “I’m sorry, this is not the time to laugh.”

Belle pulled back, taking his hand to lead him into their bedroom. “I think it’s the perfect time to laugh death in the face, to drink and eat and love and fuck. I allowed Greg to rule over my life for too long. His death shouldn’t keep me from living.”

All Rowen wanted was to drown in her, to melt into her, rest between her bones for the rest of his life. Certainly more than just profane fucking. Despite the adrenaline still wrecking him, he managed to go slow, to help Belle out of her clothes once more with as much tenderness as if she would burst into stardust if he touched her too hard, shatter like glass. He kissed her, every inch, and finally took the time to follow the branches, the leaves and lines of the rowan tree on her back, kissing, licking, scraping his teeth along her spine, while Belle lay on her stomach, her head resting on her forearms, smiling at him over her shoulder. Rowen nibbled at her shoulder while he traced the lips of her vulva, caressed her entrance, leisurely, breathing in every sound, every sigh passing her lips, until she started to grind down into the mattress, until she moaned and keened.

“Be still, my heart. Don’t wake our daughter.” His whisper made her shiver, and she pulled a pillow close to bite down on it, to contain the needy gasps, the groan when he slipped a finger inside her, and then a second one, moving them slow and gentle, closing his eyes to feel the silken wetness with all his senses. He felt her inner muscles clench, felt her spasm as she grinded down and he crooked his fingers, and he waited for her to ride it out before he withdrew his fingers. Belle rolled onto her back, pulled him with her, but he wasn’t in a hurry, and although the feeling of her heat enclosing him came close to agony, stringing his nerves tight, he didn’t allow himself more than a gentle rocking against her, hardly moving. It was so much more important to see her, to look at her, to drown in her eyes and kiss her little sighs from her lips, to feel her arms tight around him, and his orgasm came just as slow as their kisses and touches came, rolling up his spine like warm honey, a wave of bliss that turned him boneless.

“Thank you for coming with us”, Belle said, after a while, her head resting on his chest, her fingertips following the curve of his ribs.

“I told you, I want to be there for you.”

Belle lifted her head and kissed his collarbone, his shoulder. “Do you really think we’re ready to move in together?”

Rowen raked through her hair, twisting strands of it around his fingers to gain some time. “No”, he said at last. “You and me, maybe. But not Ivy. Not so soon after… her father’s death.”

Belle let her head sink down to his shoulders again, and he felt something cold and wet on his skin. “You’re right. And you are a real father.”

“Don’t cry, sweetheart. It will all turn out alright, you’ll see.” He kept petting her, painted circles and hearts on her skin, until her breathing became steady, and he held her until he, too, fell asleep.


	22. Chapter 22

The nausea never stopped now, a black gnawing in the pit of her stomach, and Ivy knew that thorns were growing inside her, like those insurmountable brier woods of fairy tales, keeping her isolated and alone in herself. Everyone looked differently at her now, looked at her like she was _that_ girl, the girl whose father had been found lying in his own blood. Not that anyone told her the details, but she wasn’t stupid, and she could be very quiet. She was a shadow, and no one paid attention to shadows. At school, they looked at her as if looks could break her, sad and afraid, because no one knew how to talk with _that_ girl. Her teachers whispered, and fell silent when they passed her in the corridors. She didn’t pay attention in class, doodled black flowers and bleeding thorns, and no one called her out on it. It was as if she didn’t even exist anymore.

Before they had left LA again, she had visited Amber, but her friend didn’t know what to say, and Ivy found herself missing Grace. Amber was silent, and Ivy was silent, and the only sound between them was that of the squeaking ferrets. But Grace didn’t know what to say either, and so Ivy hugged her knees and stared into the emptiness around her. The only one that didn’t look any differently at her was Rowen, and Ivy was almost glad that he now spent so much time with them. Everyone else didn’t know what to say, but looked at her as if she should say something to release them from something awkward and uncomfortable. Rowen was simply there, talked to her, but didn’t expect her to say anything. He seemed content just saying things from time to time, whether she answered them or not. Her mom was running a lot now, and Rowen came over to watch her in that time, and later, when Mom was back, he stayed to prepare dinner and eat with them. It was a routine that grew almost comfortable, if only for his lack of expectations. Ivy didn’t know if she would be able to endure his presence this much if he wouldn’t be the only one not wanting her to forget that her father was dead and smile again already.

Even her teacher, Miss Blanchard, lost her patience with her at some point, some weeks after Greg’s death, and approached her after class.

“I know that it’s terrible to lose a parent, Ivy, but you have to give your friends a chance to help you. Don’t isolate yourself like that. Life can still be wonderful, if you allow it.”

Miss Blanchard didn’t really care for Ivy. She wanted that the others could breathe freely again, wanted that Ivy stopped being the shadow that made them uncomfortable. She didn’t say it like that, but Ivy had a roiling, biting, gnawing rage just beneath her breastbone, where her ribs met, because even if Miss Blanchard didn’t say it like that, Ivy knew that this was what she meant.

Rowen was there when she came home that day, waiting for her with pancakes, while Mom still was at work in the flower shop, and he watched as she tossed her school bag to the floor and kicked it three times.

“What happened?”, he asked, but he sounded as if it would be ok if she decided not to answer.

“That stupid, stupid, stupid Miss Blanchard! She’s scared of me, I know it.” Her voice was raw, and Ivy hated it.

“What did she say?”

“She wants me to pretend that I’m happy. She doesn’t know how it is!”

“No one knows that. Plenty of people lose their parents or children, but you’re the only one who lost _your_ father. The feeling might be universal, but the people and their relationships are unique.”

Ivy tilted her head and tried to figure out what he meant while she followed Rowen into the kitchen. He had keys for the house now, and he already knew where all the things were. Ivy preferred when Mom made her something to eat, because Rowen couldn’t cook at all, but at least he limited his experiments to pancakes and waffles.

“She just wants me to make her life easier. No one thinks of me.”

Rowen turned back to her, and Ivy halted in the middle of their tiny kitchen. “I think of you. And while I am sorry that you lost your father, I am not sorry that I have found you. I’m sorry I didn’t know about you earlier.”

The thorns inside her pricked her harder, Ivy felt them press against her skin from inside, ready to break through, and she had to let them out before she would break under the strain. “You aren’t sorry that I lost Greg. You’re happy because you think you can be my dad now.”

Tears stung in her eyes, and she was just as much angry at him as she was at herself for attacking the only person that didn’t hate her yet. But she had to spit that blackness out before it ate her alive. She waited for him to deny it, to lie, but he just tilted his head and looked at her, and that was the worst of all.

“I’m not happy”, he said after a long beat, and he was hoarse, but it was too late.

“You are a terrible liar.” Ivy turned around and fled for her room, where she spent most of her time lately, looking out of the window or making flowers as big as her head out of black crêpe paper, to hang them from the ceiling like fringy tears. Greg would hate them, because he hated all flowers, and even Mom’s tattoos. Whenever Mom had told her the meaning of a flower, he had snorted and rolled his eyes.

Maybe Greg had hated her, too, because she bore the name of a flower, and he had never wanted to talk to her again after sending them away. He had certainly not loved her. If he had, he wouldn’t just leave her like that. A dry sob fought its way up her windpipe, and Ivy tried to hold it down. But the swirling ache became too much to bear, and for a while, she lay in her bed and allowed the tears to fall, hoping that it would flush out thorns and pain and forlornness.

It was already getting dark when someone knocked at the door of her room. It was Mom with tea and cold pancakes, and she sat down at Ivy’s side on the bed and petted her arm for a while.

“Rowen told me that you haven’t eaten anything, baby. I brought you pancakes.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Mom smiled, but all her smiles were sad, and this one was no exception. She looked around, as if it was too difficult to look at Ivy. As if she couldn’t bear it because Ivy’s pain was so much bigger than her own. Ivy knew only too well that Mom wasn’t sad because Greg was dead. Only angry.

“Did you make more flowers?”, Mom asked, but Ivy thought it wasn’t necessary to answer that. It was plain as day, after all. “They’re beautiful”, Mom said, when Ivy didn’t answer, and Ivy turned away.

“You don’t understand anything.”

“Oh darling. I know you’re sad. And it breaks my heart. That’s all I need to know.”

“You didn’t even like Greg.” It was the meanest thing Ivy could think of, and for a moment her mother looked as if she was about to cry. But she blinked the wet sheen in her eyes away.

“Greg did some terrible things, and I am angry at him, yes. But he was not always a bad person, and sometimes we were friends. But now I’m mostly angry at him. You and I, we didn’t deserve to be treated that way.”

“What do you even care? All you think about is Rowen, Rowen, Rowen.”

Mom pressed her lips together, and patted Ivy one last time before she got up. “I think about you, Ivy, more than anything else.” She left the room, and Ivy, like someone would leave a pet that was no longer wanted. Maybe that was the reason Greg had no longer wanted to live. He had pushed them away, but maybe he just wanted them to fight for him and tell him that they loved him. Ivy knew that she didn’t _want_ to push her mom away all the time. It just happened.

It was late on Saturday afternoon when Rowen came and told her to put on boots and a warm coat and pack something to eat.

“Why?”, she asked, and looked from him to her mother, who frowned like she didn’t know what he was planning.

“I’m taking you on a little trip.”

“I’m just going to put on something else to wear”, Mom started, but Rowen clasped her arm and held her back.

“It’s only Ivy and I, darling. There is a little something we have to do.”

“Oh.” That was all Mom said, despite Ivy’s hope that she would protest. Instead, she packed them sandwiches and apples and cake and tea in a thermos. Despite having spent some time alone with Rowen by now, Ivy was not at all keen on the idea to go somewhere with him, and she still hoped Mom would interfere when Rowen placed the hand with the ring on her shoulder and squeezed gently.

“Bring some of your black flowers, sweetie, will you?”

“Why?”

“Because we’ll need them.” He didn’t get any clearer than that, and Ivy felt silly when she climbed into the Cadillac with an armful of black paper flowers. On the backseat was a large box with something white in it, but Ivy couldn’t determine what it was. She turned back to the front and crinkled her nose.

“Where are we going?”, she asked. Rowen didn’t take his eyes from the road.

“To my cabin. There is something I need to do.”

“And what is that?”

Now he did look at her, and Ivy shrank a little, because his eyes seemed so raw, as if there were thorns growing inside him, too. “I’m going to let Bae out of his vase, and I want you to help me. I’m not sure if I manage to let go alone.”

“Oh.” Ivy was silent then, and watched the road zoom by. It was murky between the trees, and the lake beside the cabin lay there like an oily mirror, concealing the depth of the darkness under its silver surface.

“Would you help me and get that box out of the car, sweetie?”

When she carried the box to the lakefront, she learned that the white that she had seen inside it was, in fact, paper, but only when she set the box down, and Rowen crouched down and started to unfold it, Ivy realized that it were small paper bags. Rowen extended the first one to her, and Ivy took it, still not sure what to do with it.

“There are tealights in the box to put into the lanterns. Would you do that?”

Ivy nodded, and for a while, they worked in silence. Only when all the lanterns were unfolded and each had a little candle inside it, not yet lit, Ivy spoke again. “What are we going to do with them?”

“Sent them floating on the lake. I thought we could let some of your flowers float as well. So that Bae’s ashes fall onto a sea of light and flowers.”

“You want to pour him out into the lake?”

“Isn’t that better than being locked into a vase?” Rowen tilted his head, and he sounded a little impatient.

“I thought it’s an urn.”

“Same difference. Now, are you going to help me or not?”

Ivy scrunched up her nose, but she nodded. They carried the lanterns to the end of the small pier leading out onto the lake and lit them one by one, setting them carefully into the water, where an invisible current slowly carried them out and scattered them all over the lake. Ivy knelt at the edge of the wooden planks and set her flowers into the water, too. They were light enough to float for a little while before they slowly started to absorb water and drown. But for a few minutes, the lake looked like an enchanted place out of a fairy tale, growing lights and black water lilies, and Ivy couldn’t imagine a place more beautiful than this as a last resting place. Rowen stood up, resting a hand on her shoulder and looking out into the growing darkness before he opened the metal urn and carefully scattered the ashes of her brother onto the dark water. A few grains lit up in the light of the floating candles, glittering in the twilight, and for a short moment, time seemed to stand still. Ivy and Rowen still looked out onto the lake when all the flowers had long sunken under the surface, and only a few lanterns were not yet drowned. The first stars dotted the sky, and lightning bugs came out and circled the few lanterns still floating.

“It’s perfect”, Ivy whispered, and Rowen smiled, hardly visible in the growing darkness.

“It is.”

They stood there in silence for another while, until Rowen inhaled deeply and turned to face her. “Shall we go home, or do you want to eat something first?”

“I’d like to stay for a little longer and watch the sky… Do you know the names of the stars?” Ivy allowed that he took her hand when they walked back to the shore, mostly because she was afraid she would miss a step and fall into the water. _Not_ because it was nice to have someone to hold onto.

“I do not, but I’d say that’s something we could find out together. I’m sure your mother knows a good book about astronomy.”

“You think so?”

“Your mom knows a book for everything.” 

They sat down on the steps of the cabin’s porch, and Ivy was glad that it was dark, because she didn’t like to watch him eat. He mostly didn’t end up with food all over his face, not like Greg. But even if he didn’t dribble, Ivy still disliked seeing tongues. She looked out into the dark, keeping her eyes open for more fireflies. She wished she could catch some and have them in a jar, so they would share their light with her. But there had been only few, and maybe their time was already over.

“Do you know why everyone is afraid of me now?”, she asked, after she had eaten her sandwich, and Rowen took his time to chew and swallow before he answered.

“They’re not afraid of you. They’re afraid of hurting you. Of saying the wrong thing and not be able to spare you from pain. It’s a normal reaction to a loss that is as incomprehensible as the suicide of a parent or the death of a child.”

“Did they look at you like that when Bae died?”

“They did, yes. But when I moved here, no one even knew about Bae, so they didn’t look at me with pity. Just with fear.” Rowen was finished with his sandwich, too, and took out a napkin to rub his hands clean.

“Why fear?”

“I’m a scary and powerful man. People don’t trust me.” He didn’t sound as if it mattered to him. It was just something that had always been like that. Other people’s opinion didn’t touch him, and somehow Ivy wished she could just disregard the looks she got, too. Let them bounce off of a shell as thick as that of a centuries-old tortoise.

“My mom seems to trust you.”

“And I will never stop to be astounded by that. She trusted me too much, even, and I hurt her. There’s nothing I’m more sorry for than that. If I hadn’t hurt her, she might have told me about you.”

“So you screwed up.”

Rowen frowned for a moment, but Ivy felt free of guilt. After all, her mother swore all the time. Probably more than Rowen knew. “I think I did, yes.”

Ivy didn’t know what to say then, and she stared at the ground, and the sky. After a while, Rowen asked her if she was ready to go home, and she nodded.

“Maybe I will make some purple flowers tomorrow”, she said, when they sat in the car.

“I think that’s an excellent idea.” Rowen smiled, and Ivy returned it. Now she was glad after all that he was there. The thorns hurt a little less when she was with him.


	23. Chapter 23

Belle stared at Dr. Whale, at the artful wave his hair made before it fell down to his forehead, at the slightly grey pores on his nose, his slightly bulging eyes, and wished to wake up. “No”, she said, but his smile, this ugly show of teeth behind too thin lips, didn’t waver.

“Yes.”

“But I’m on the pill.” He had to be wrong. Maybe it was a cyst. Cancer. Anything but that.

“Well, you see, no contraceptive method is a hundred percent safe. And maybe you forgot to take it? As I understand, you’ve had a lot on your mind lately.”

Belle wanted to slap that smile out of his face. There was nothing to smile about. Absolutely nothing. “My ex-husband died six weeks ago. I had to go to LA. But…” She trailed off. Maybe she _had_ forgotten to take it. She couldn’t remember. It all had been too much.

“Well, usually it takes the body a while to adjust if you cease taking the pill, but for some women, one missed day is all it takes. Of course, if you don’t want to keep it, there are options.”

Belle had no idea what he was talking about, not now, not in her current state of shock, and she fixed her eyes on his too white teeth and wondered if he really was suggesting what she thought he was suggesting and still smiled while doing so. “You don’t understand. I’ve lost two babies, and I don’t want to go through that again.”

Finally, his face ceased to show off his terrible smile, and he frowned. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to happen again. There are many factors that come into play with that. Sometimes the mother is in too much stress, doesn’t feel safe in a relationship, is afraid… sometimes the genetics don’t fit. Is your late husband the father of this baby?”

“No.” Belle was numb, and she directed her attention to the monitor of the ultrasound.

“Then I would recommend you not to panic. We’ll monitor it closely, should you decide to keep it, and chances are that everything will be fine. I’d like to send you to Dr. Hopper, too. Having the support of a therapist can help enormously to counter stress.”

Belle nodded, trying her best not to cry. Dr. Whale took her hand and squeezed gently.

“Talk to your partner. You are in a stable relationship, aren’t you? And consider to do a little less running.”

Belle had no idea if her relationship was stable. And when she left Dr. Whale’s office, she wasn’t sure if she even wanted to tell Rowen about it. What if she lost this baby, too? She didn’t want him to go through the pain of losing another baby. And she was convinced that it would be only a matter of time until this baby would be just another painful memory. On the other hand, she wouldn’t be able to hide her pregnancy for very long. Maybe she should leave for a while. Keep the pain away from him.

Rowen and Ivy were getting along so well now. Ivy was slowly opening up, and somehow, Rowen managed to hit exactly the right tone with her. He was wonderful. And Belle’s heart ached when she looked at him, ached with love and longing and… well, maybe it was the pregnancy that messed with her hormones and made her hyper-emotional. She could hardly look at him without tearing up, and that he hadn’t noticed yet was a miracle.

Maybe it would be safer and less painful for everyone to end this pregnancy. But Belle knew that this was an illusion. It wouldn’t be less painful, not for her, and really, where was the logic to get an abortion out of fear of losing the baby? No, she would keep it, and hope. Rowen had already proposed marriage once, so she didn’t think he wouldn’t want this baby. But if she lost it… Belle didn’t want to think about what would happen then. She had already kept one child from him. How would he react if she denied him another one, if she lost it because she wasn’t able to carry it to term? Maybe his hatred would come back. He wouldn’t be able to forgive her that. And even less than she wanted to lose his baby, she wanted to lose him.

She reached home in a state of nausea, close to panic, and Ivy had to remind her that they were going to Rowen’s place for dinner that day. Which meant take-out, since Rowen’s kitchen fulfilled decorative purposes rather than practical ones. She spent the evening staring absent-mindedly at her plate, or her tea, let the conversation about school and dance classes and the upcoming recital pass her by, didn’t even register when Ivy invited Rowen, and was momentarily confused by his shining eyes, his glowing cheeks when he asked her what she was thinking about it.

“About what?”, she asked, and bit her lip when he frowned. Ivy snorted.

“Mom, have you been sleeping? Rowen said we could have a sleepover here after the recital.”

“Oh.” Ivy and Rowen looked at her with huge, expectant eyes, and she realized that they wanted to hear a little more than just _oh_. “Sure. Why not?”

“Cool.” For Ivy, everything was settled then, and she asked Rowen if she was allowed to watch TV, but Rowen’s forehead showed faint crinkles that told Belle that he had caught on to something.

“Is everything alright?”, he asked, as soon as Ivy was out of the room. Belle fought back tears (stupid, stupid tears), and nodded.

“Everything’s perfect. Just a little tired from work, that’s all.”

“You’ve been far away all evening, sweetheart. You hardly smiled when Ivy joked about my poor cooking, and that was the first joke she made in weeks.” He reached over the table and took her hand, and Belle stared at the back of his fingers, at the trace of hair growing there, at his well kept nails. Imagined his hands holding a baby. A baby looking like made out of wax and hardly bigger than his hand.

“I’m sorry. I’m really just tired.” She pulled back her hand and tried to disguise her inability to bear his touch right now as thirst, closing her hand around her glass of water.

“Are you in the mood for a glass of wine? I have a really good one…”

Belle interrupted him before he could start to ramble about his wine. “Thanks, Rowen. But no. I should probably go to sleep.”

For a moment he looked as if she had cut off his air supply, as if he was trying to figure out what he had done wrong, and Belle’s heart ached even more at the hurt in his eyes. But he didn’t say anything, and his look still haunted Belle when she was home again and curled up in her bed. The fatigue she felt could very well be due to the pregnancy, but Belle did her best to hide it over the course of the next few days. She was aware that Rowen watched her, that he noted small changes in her behaviour, that he wondered when he came to watch Ivy while she was running, only to find her too tired to move at all. Belle limited the times he could stay over night after the first time she threw up in the morning, because she didn’t want him to witness her morning sickness, but there were only so many reasons she could come up with to send him away. She knew that he thought she was still struggling with Greg’s death, or with the scars her marriage had left, and she was thankful that he tried to give her room to process. Grateful that he didn’t nag and didn’t push, just quietly waited for her to come around again. And she managed to keep him at this safe distance for almost four weeks before the civil facade he had put on melted and crumbled and revealed the hurt man underneath.

She was so tired all the time now that she had taken to sit at her workbench in the flower shop, instead of standing all day, while she was binding bouquets. Her hands were green from cutting flowers, and her nails had dark edges, and Belle thought that she should take better care of those nails, maybe a little more like Rowen, because she turned more and more into a slob he wouldn’t want to be caught with at the dead of the night, now that she couldn’t run so much anymore. Her thoughts were cut off when the bell over the door tingled, and the subject of all her fears and longings walked in, impeccable as always, with a dark look that made her shiver.

“Rowen.”

“Why hello. So you are still talking to me. I already thought you never wanted to see me again after you didn’t take my calls anymore.” There was so much acid in his voice that Belle’s stomach clenched, as if it awaited a punch.

“I didn’t get any calls.” She fumbled her phone out of her back pocket, only to find that the battery had died. She tossed it onto the workbench, beside the bouquet of roses she had been working on. “There’s no need to be so bitchy, it’s just the battery that died. I’m not avoiding you.”

“Of course you are.” Rowen crossed the salesroom and rounded the table, and when Belle looked away, he cupped her chin and made her look at him. “You look terrible, and it’s been going on for forever now. You’re pale, you’re losing weight, you don’t want to talk about what’s going on… Don’t take me for a fool, Belle. What is it?”

“It’s absolutely nothing at all. I’m fine, just a little stressed out is all.”

Rowen let go of her chin and stepped back. “Do you remember the recital tomorrow? Do you still want to sleep over at my place, or would you rather not spend any more time with me than necessary?”

Belle rolled her eyes and tossed her pliers onto the table, almost hitting her phone. “For God’s sake, Rowen. I’m not avoiding you!”

“It looks like it. It’s been hard enough to find the time to spend a night with each other, but now it looks like it has become impossible. Do you know that it’s been almost five weeks since we’ve last had sex?”

Belle grabbed the edge of the workbench, because she needed support. She knew exactly how long it had been, because the last time was on the day before she found out about her pregnancy. And god, she missed to feel his skin on hers, and missed his embrace, and yes, missed his penis. She never thought to be capable to miss a man’s appendage like she missed his, and she was more than a little ashamed for it. “It’s just difficult to find the time, you know that.”

“It would be easier if we would all live in one place. Ivy and I are getting along great. I think she’s ready for it.”

“Not three months after her father’s death? What makes you think she’s ready now?” Belle had to fight down a wave of nausea, and concentrated hard on keeping the contents of her stomach down. Now was not the time to grab the bucket she had always within reach and puke her heart out, not in front of him.

“Well, maybe I think she’s as ready as she’s going to get and just want to put my foot in the door before you slip through my fingers again.”

The vulnerability shining through his words took her breath away for a moment, and when she gained her balance again, she had to reach for the bucket under the table after all. The horror on his face was almost comical, but Belle wasn’t in the mood to laugh when she parted with half a thermos of tea and a light sandwich with mozzarella and tomatoes. When he got over his shock, he even held her hair out of her face and rubbed her shoulders, until the heaving stopped and her stomach was truly empty.

“Belle, you shouldn’t work when you are sick. Please, if this is about money, just let me help you. You know that you don’t need to pay the rent, right? I didn’t want to say anything, because you are so insanely proud, but it’s ridiculous to pay rent to me…” He was rambling, and Belle closed her eyes and tuned out. She should be relieved that he only thought she was sick.

“I have to clean that…”, she murmured, turning away, and Rowen fell silent.

“You aren’t even listening, are you?”

“If you haven’t noticed, I just puked. I’m not in the mood to talk about the rent right now. Nor about my _insane_ pride.”  

“Oh, god damnit, Belle.” He thrust his hands up, and Belle wished she was able to overcome her fear, to close her arms around him… Maybe even fuck him there, letting him bend her over the workbench. But the thought of kissing him now, after just vomiting, was mildly disgusting.

“Maybe you should let Ivy sleep over without me. To see if she’s really ready.” Rowen paled, and Belle knew how it looked. It looked as if she was slowly pulling out of their relationship, stepping back… getting ready to go separate ways. “Look, I don’t feel that well, and a father-daughter-day seems like a good idea, don’t you think?”

“Yes. Of course.” His sadness was weighing her down, and Belle was unable to meet his eyes. And she was glad that he left then, probably without saying all the things he came to say in the first place, and without offering to pamper her either. Which was almost the worst of all. And he didn’t come over that night, something that was so unusual by now that Ivy frowned at her, watched her as if she suspected her of some heinous crime.

“What did you do?”, Ivy asked, and Belle was close to crying again.

“I just don’t feel well. Would you like to stay over at Rowen’s without me tomorrow?”

Ivy protested, but it was more like she thought she had to put on a show to keep up appearances. In reality, being alone with Rowen had lost all the terror it once held, and once in a while, a small part of Belle was even the tiniest bit jealous at how well he got along with their daughter now. The larger, rational part of her brain, though, told her that Ivy had always liked men better. Still, when Rowen took Ivy home with him the next day, after the recital (that he had watched glowing brighter than the stage lighting), there was a biting in her stomach that had nothing to do with the constant sickness of her pregnancy. She went home alone, curled up in her bed with tea and chocolate and salty crackers and pickled silverskin onions, and tried not to cry. And she would have succeeded, maybe, if she hadn’t read Ivy’s favourite children’s book and started to cry helplessly over the poor mole who didn’t find out who pooped on his head. And of course, just when her desperation reached its peak, someone rang at her door. Belle tried her best to wipe the tears off her face before she opened the door, but she failed, and she nearly didn’t recognize Ivy through her tears.

“You are so mean”, was all Ivy said, before she slipped past Belle and stomped up the stairs, and left her mother alone to face Rowen, who, a second ago, had looked as if he was about to take a wrecking ball to her house. But the fury slipped off his face when he saw her.

“Gods, Belle, what happened?”

“I read a very sad book.” She stepped aside to let him in, and the worry in his eyes quieted only slightly.

“What book?”

“ _The Story of the Little Mole who knew it was None of his Business_.”

Rowen opened his mouth, and closed it again. “Ah. Erm. Well, there is something that certainly is my business, and I was ready to yell at you when you opened that door.”

Belle looked out into the night for a moment before she closed the door and trudged into the kitchen. “I’m sorry for whatever Ivy did, but she’s just a kid. You shouldn’t let her have too much sugar.”

“No, you terrible, stubborn, insufferable woman. It’s you I’m mad at. When did you intend to tell me?” He had followed her into the kitchen, and banged the door shut.

“Tell you what?” Belle dreaded his answer. Hoped it wasn’t what she feared.

“What was that lesson? Kids keep no secrets? Do you think Ivy didn’t notice that you vomited every morning? Maybe you can tell her that you’re sick, but I’m not stupid. She’s worried sick about you, you…” He trailed off, wringing his hands, and Belle felt a new wave of tears threatening to spill.

“What?”

“Mule. You stubborn, infuriating, intolerable mule. Did you ever plan to tell me about our baby, or did you plan to take off before it started to show?”

Belle was panting, and with a sudden wave of nausea, she turned and parted company with tea, chocolate, crackers and silverskin onions, emptying her stomach into the sink. Rowen was instantly at her side and held her hair, and rubbed her back.

“Goodness, what did you eat? That looks… revolting.”

“I wanted to spare you the pain of losing it. Because either I’m going to lose it, or I will die of morning sickness.”

Rowen’s hand on her back stilled, and Belle didn’t dare to look at him. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to concentrate on the thrumming of blood in her ears.

“I rather be with you than let you go through this pain all on your own, Belle. And why do you think you’ll lose it? Maybe you won’t.”

“But maybe I will, and then you’ll hate me for taking another kid from you.”

“God, pregnancy really does turn you stupid, you dumb, little mule. I love you. I won’t hate you if something goes wrong. Which it won’t, you hear me?” Rowen pulled her into a tight hug, and Belle sniffled against his chest. And then she punched him.

“Stop calling me that. I’m not a mule.”

“Oh well. Nobody’s perfect.”

“So you are not mad?” Belle dared to wrap her arms around his waist, and his sigh lifted her cheek on his chest up.

“I’m furious, but I decided to yell at you tomorrow. Now I’m going to make you a hot water bottle and tuck you into bed. And I won’t leave your side until this baby is born, even if I have to tie you to the bed for that.”

“So you move in with us?”

“Yes.”

“Do I have a say in the matter?”

“No.” He kissed her forehead, but his tone left no doubt that the decision was made. And maybe that was for the best, because it wouldn’t be that bad if she could delegate breakfast and lunch preparations for Ivy. And when he slipped into bed with her, after she had brushed her teeth, wrapped his arm around her and held her, she had to admit that this was better than being alone.


	24. Chapter 24

The realization came like the blow of a sledgehammer, and for a moment, his vision had been black and red and bitter. “Say that again”, he’d snarled, and regretted it instantly when Ivy’s face turned into that of a terrified child facing a monster.

“Mom should go see a doctor, because she’s been puking all the time. Every morning she blocks the bathroom, and it’s so gross.”

“Every morning?”

Ivy had nodded, and it had cost all his strength to push back the rage and hurt and put back on the calm and composed face he needed to reassure Ivy. But he meant every word he later said to Belle: He would yell at her. At length. As soon as the urge to hold her and never let her go passed, and he felt able to let her go more than a few feet away from him. Maybe when he was able to allow them not to be in the same room. But right now, he feared that every moment he didn’t hold her would either lead to a tragedy, a catastrophe or another stupid decision on her part.

The following morning, when Ivy was off to school, he called Moe French to tell him that Belle wouldn’t come in for work that day (and he almost had to tie her to the bed to be able to make that call), and took her home with him.

“I want you to decide where we’re going to live. My house is bigger and has enough room for all of us, including a nursery for the baby, but if you want to stay in your house, I’m going to move in with you there and rent out this place. Or sell it. Third possibility is to get a new house together.”

Belle looked small in the middle of his dining room, as out of place as she always had, and he knew her decision before she even opened her mouth.

“You would sell your pink palace for me?”, she asked, voice trembling, and Rowen took her chin to hold her still for a kiss.

“I’d do anything for you. And it’s just a house. I never liked the color anyways.”

“And now you’re lying.” Belle pivoted on tiptoes, but Rowen didn’t let her out of his reach, clasping her upper arms to pull her with her back against his chest. And only when he was sure she wouldn’t just try to step away, he loosened his grip, brushed away her hair to kiss her neck, just below her earlobe.

“It doesn’t matter, darling. No house means as much to me as you and Ivy do.”

“But what about all your stuff? And your darkroom? Do you still develop your own photos?”

Rowen let his fingertips glide along her shoulder, reveling in the shiver it caused her, kissing the goose bumps that followed his touch. “I do. Which reminds me of something else. You promised me to let me take your picture again.”

“Now?”

“Yes.” He traced little circles with the pad of his thumb on her shoulder, her upper arm, and stroked down to her wrist, covering her hand with his. Guided her hand to cover her belly, lacing fingers. “I’m going to take your picture every day, until our baby is born. And maybe every day for the rest of our lives. Or at least for as long as you’ll have me. Because I won’t miss a single day of this pregnancy, or the life of this child.”

“Is that another proposal?” Belle looked down, and Rowen pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck. Tried to soothe away the bitterness of his words.

“Only if you want it to be.” Closing his eyes, he breathed in her scent, pressed his face into her hair, and swayed a little when she sunk against him, trusting him to hold her.

“I think I need your help with telling Ivy. This will devastate her.”

“She’s stronger than you think.”

“She’s ten. Her heart has already suffered so much.”

Rowen didn’t answer. Ivy’s heart had suffered, yes, but Belle’s had, too, and more than he ever wanted her to suffer. His girls deserved all the love in the world, but somehow he still doubted he was enough to provide them with it. He tightened his embrace. “We’ll tell her together. So, what do you think? Which house will it be?”

“I’d like to talk with Ivy first. I might not have any say in the matter, but I’m sure that Ivy has.”

Rowen wasn’t oblivious to the slight edge in her voice, and he wondered if Belle begrudged him his relationship with her daughter. But that would be ridiculous. He loved them both, and Ivy still called him Rowen; her acceptance of him was fragile, at best. “You’re stalling.”

“Rowen, this isn’t a decision that I can make from one second to the next. You know that.” Belle wriggled out of his arms, and Rowen considered that he might start yelling much sooner than he had anticipated.

“You already know for weeks about this pregnancy! Don’t tell me you haven’t given a thought to what might happen if this doesn’t end in a miscarriage.”

“Well, I haven’t. Figure that, I was occupied with barfing and coming up with ways to spare you from the pain of the inevitable.” She hugged herself, and stared at him out of raw eyes, her nostrils flaring.

“By hurting me even more? Congratulations, your plan worked. I’m hurt, I’m angry, and I wonder if I will ever understand you.” He couldn’t keep his voice down, and Belle took a step back.

“Then why do you want us to move in at all? Is this some twisted sense of responsibility? Oh, I knocked her up, now I have to pay for it?” Her voice was rising, too, and a flush was creeping up her neck, covering her cheeks in angry red. Rowen licked his lips, took a deep breath.

“You’re still a mule, aren’t you? I want to live with you because I love you, and I am hurt and angry because you don’t trust me and shut me out. You were about to repeat the exact same mistake we made when you had Ivy: not saying a word and just hope I would never notice.”

“Are you saying Ivy’s a mistake?”

“I didn’t say anything of the sort. I said it was a mistake not to tell me.”

“And you’re never going to let that go, aren’t you?”

“That’s not the point now!” He rubbed his forehead, exasperated with her stubbornness.

“That’s always the point. No matter what I do, I will always carry this debt additionally to everything else. There’s no way we’re ever going to be on equal footing. You try to disguise it by leaving me the choice of our house, but you’re not asking me if I even want to live with you.”

“So you don’t? You want to raise this kid on your own, without me? Do you even want me?” His voice broke, and Rowen turned around, away, to hide the shame of it.

“Of course I do want to live with you! But I want to be asked. I want to know that I matter, that I’m not just a… collateral…”

Rowen turned around again, but he stepped back, afraid he would grab and shake her if he came too close. “You want to be _asked_? You want to _matter_? What do you think I want? So far, I’m just a convenience for you, someone to look after Ivy when you go running, someone to pay for dance classes, someone to eat you out when you need to get laid. You don’t let me close enough to see beyond that ink on your skin.”

Belle paled, panted, her eyes huge in her face, and only then did he realize how cruel his words had been. And still, he couldn’t find it in him to apologize. He could tell himself that he would accept that state of their relationship all he wanted, he would never manage to drown out the doubts and the fears and the insecurity.

“I bared myself down to my very soul before you. You know more about me than anyone else, and you’re the person that went with me to piss on my ex husband’s grave, so yeah, I think I let you pretty close.”

“And yet you never intended to tell me that I’m going to be a father again. The very thing you knew I would never forgive you, the very thing you’re constantly telling me that I’m holding it against you, and still, you went ahead and did it _again_. Are you so callous, or do you just not care about me?”  

“I do care about you.”

“It doesn’t look like it.”

They stared at each other, and Rowen told himself to ignore her watery eyes. Ignore the hurt on her face, ignore her trembling lip. Belle closed her eyes, and bit down on her lip, so hard that it drained of color. It was ripping him apart, and yet he was unable to soften, unable to try and take away the pain he was inflicting on her.

“Rowen, if we move into this house, I’m even more dependent than I already am. There’s nothing I can do to make up for keeping Ivy from you, and if I move in here, my debt to you only grows. I don’t want that. It scares me.”

There was a sting between his ribs, as if his lungs were about to collapse, and it took him a moment to sort out the source of that suffocating ache. “So I never was and never will be anything but a pawnbroker to you. You’re talking about debts, as if every interaction has a value to it and everything I do for you adds another stone to your burden. This… you and I, this means more to me than assets. More than a house, or money. If your well-being depends on your independence, then so be it. I want what’s best for you.”

“And yet you can’t stop to complain that you don’t mean anything to me, although that’s not even true.”

“I guess that at the end of the day, I’m just a man. You lost so much, but I lost things, too, and for once in my life, I want to keep the one thing I need more than anything else from slipping through my fingers. That’s the crux, isn’t it? In order for you to be happy, I need to let go. Which is exactly what I can’t, for the life of me. Where does that leave us?”

Belle fixed her eyes on the knot of his tie, as if she was once more unable to meet his eyes, and he realized that it was already too late. She’d been slipping away from him for too long already. He pressed his eyes shut when she stepped closer, and prepared for the inevitable. And it was not the inevitable she had been preparing for. He would not only lose a child. He was about to lose her.

“I don’t want you to let go”, she whispered, and her fingertips ghosted along his collar, up, along his jaw. He didn’t dare to open his eyes.

“Belle… don’t toy with me. If you want to end it, end it.”

She didn’t answer immediately, and the pause stretched so long that his heart started to crack. He shivered when she ran her fingers through his hair. “We’re quite the drama queens, aren’t we? How did we start with ‘which house do we want to live in’ and end up at ‘end it if you want to’?”

“True. It’s like Nightmare Monopoly.” Rowen sighed, but he still didn’t open his eyes. Just bent his head a little to feel her hair tickle his nose.

“You shouldn’t argue with a pregnant woman. We’re not rational.”

“You don’t say. I wouldn’t have noticed.” Now he opened his eyes, just in time to see her roll hers.

“Alright. I want this house. I’m probably going to complain a lot, and curse you more often than not, but I really, really like your house, and you.” She tucked her head under his chin and snuggled her cheek against his chest. Rowen closed his arms around her once more, and stroked her hair, cupping the back of her skull to hold her against him.

“Liar”, he murmured.

“Oh well… I don’t really like your house.” Belle rubbed her nose against his tie, and Rowen pushed back any thoughts about silk and snot. “But even less than your house, I like the idea of cramming the four of us into my tiny house, which is technically your house, too, because that would be heading for disaster. And the idea of moving two households into a new house… no, thanks. I don’t think that would go well with me, being pregnant and all. Dr. Whale said I should avoid stress.”

“That sounds like reasonable advice.” Rowen swayed a little with the relief washing through him. “You said the four of us”, he said, after a while, and felt Belle sigh, every sound of it swallowed by his clothes.

“I’m trying to sound optimistic. But I am so scared.”

“I know. Let’s go upstairs and take that picture, alright?”

Rowen needed a while until he had decided on a perspective, and in the end, he chose to take two pictures with his old camera, one of Belle’s profile, her form illuminated by the light falling through the window, with high contrasts and almost looking like a paper cut, and one with Belle naked apart from her panties, leaning against the wall and watching him with a wicked grin. But the grin fell from her lips, turning them into a perfect ‘O’ when he went down onto his knees, slowly pulling down her panties and placing one of her legs on his shoulder, kissing every petal of the passion flower on the inside of her thigh before he kissed his way to her sex, already shimmering with wetness.

“I don’t need to get laid. You don’t need to do this”, she said, her voice thick, and she tried to pull him away. Rowen paused, leant his forehead against her stomach.

“Oh Belle, I’m sorry I said that. I didn’t want to complain. Even if your only use for me is to have me eat you out, then so be it. There’s nothing I like to do more than that.” He wanted to prove it by lapping at her wetness, licking along her slit, her labia, and at her clit, but Belle pulled him away once more.

“I need you for more than just that. I love you, Rowen.” There was a tear trickling down her cheek, and Rowen reached up to wipe it from her skin.

“I love you, too, and I want to make you scream my name, so please stop interrupting me, sweetheart. I’m a man on a mission.”

Belle snorted, but she didn’t hold him back any longer, and soon she was shaking under his lips, so much that he grabbed her hips, without leaving her sex for a moment, turned her and pushed her onto the bed, backwards, following her on his knees, licking and kissing until she _did_ cry out his name. He didn’t stop, kept tending to her clit with his tongue soft and gentle, until she wasn’t even able to moan anymore, and all that came from her was a high pitched whine, just before she arched her back and twitched, and came, digging her heels into his back and pressing his face to her flesh.

He needed her help to get up and onto the bed, and Belle wrapped her arms around him and held on to him until her breathing came leveled once more. “I’d say mission accomplished, babe, but something’s still missing…” She played with the buttons of his shirt, and Rowen sighed.

“Give me five minutes and I’ll do it again.”

“No, silly”, Belle giggled. “It’s time to take care of you. I may be pregnant, but I can still fuck you into oblivion.”

And that she did.

Twice.


	25. Chapter 25

Ivy had never seen anything as suspicious as the large bowl of ice-cream in front of her. Hazelnut, chunky chocolate cookie and honeyed banana-sesame (one flavor that her mom made herself, and only to very special occasions), sprinkled with caramelized, roasted almonds. Too much sugar and too much goodness for a random Tuesday. Rowen and Mom looked at her as if they could hardly wait for her to fall into that sweet trap, and Ivy wondered if someone else had died. Or if they were going to move again and leave Rowen behind. That thought made her shiver, and she was suddenly too cold to eat ice-cream.

“I don’t want to move”, she said, and neither Rowen nor Mom could hide their reaction. Mom’s eyes went wide, and Rowen faltered, as if someone had punched him.

“Why do you think we’re going to move?” Mom tried to sound gentle, but Ivy knew fear, and she heard the strain in her mother’s voice.

“You’re trying to bribe me with ice-cream, and that means bad news. Please, I promise I won’t play another trick on Rowen, but please don’t make me move away again. I swear, I do like him.”

“Oh, honey, it’s not that”, Rowen said, while her mother focused on the entirely wrong part of Ivy’s flood of words.

“What do you mean, another trick?”

Ivy scooped up a spoon of ice-cream (hazelnut first, to save the best, honeyed banana-sesame, for last) and pretended to be too occupied to answer. “Nuthin”, she mumbled at last, but Mom’s eyes were still sharp. She had to distract her, so she concentrated on Rowen’s words. “What is it then, if we’re not going to move? Did Jefferson ban me from dance classes?” This seemed even worse than the idea that they were going to move, so she hoped it wasn’t that either, but the thought alone made her dizzy, and her chest tight.

“Of course not, why would he do that? No, honey, you are going to move, but not away. We want to move in together, so you and your mom are going to live here with me.” Rowen smiled, one of those warm smiles she kind of liked now, because his eyes turned into those of a puppy then, and Ivy liked puppies, fuzzy, clumsy little things so cute that her heart ached a little when she thought of them.

“Oh. Okay. Can I choose a room?” She scooped up another spoon full of ice-cream, while Mom and Rowen stared at her as if she was an alien.

“That’s it? No drama? No ‘I don’t want to live with Rowen’?” Mom didn’t sound convinced, as if she expected Ivy to go up in smoke, and Ivy felt very gracious and grown up when she shrugged, and wiggled her head like Rowen always did when he didn’t want to answer something (or, more likely, didn’t know the answer).

“Sure. He’s okay. And his house is kinda cool, too. Like a salmon palace.”

“A palace for fish?” Now her mother leant back, deep lines on her forehead, and Rowen reached over and patted her arm.

“No, sweetheart, she means the color.”

Ivy was struck by an idea, and she nearly fell off her chair when she leant forward. “Can I have a secret princess room in the attic? With my books and fairy lights and bouncy mattresses and a ballet bar and a mirror and everything?”

Rowen looked a little overwhelmed, maybe because she had talked too fast for him (maybe he was already starting to become a little deaf? Moe often misheard things, too), but he nodded, with serious eyes and a smile that didn’t look like he was making fun of her. “I suppose every little girl needs a chamber of secrets”, he said, and Ivy frowned.

“I’m not _you-know-who_.”

“Darling, I didn’t want to insinuate that you are even in the slightest like Mayor Mills.”

Ivy’s eyebrows hurt a little from frowning so hard, and now she wasn’t so sure anymore that he wasn’t making fun of her. “She’s got a chamber of secrets, too?”

“What do you mean, _too_ , who else has one?”

Mom groaned, and buried her head in her arms. “Could we please stop talking about secret chambers and _you-know-who_ and _she-who-must-not-be-named_ and return to the problem at hand?”

“Who is _you-know-who_?”, Rowen asked, and shifted on his seat, swallowing, when Ivy and Mom both looked at him, trying to find out if he was serious. Ivy decided to put him to the test, earning another scolding look from Mom.

“Rumplestiltskin”, she said, and had to bite the insides of her cheeks when she noticed the relief on Rowen’s face.

“Who on earth would know that Rumplestiltskin is _you-know-who_? That doesn’t make the least bit of sense.”  

“Well, you know, he puts the children he steals in the chamber of secrets, and since no one knows his name, he goes by _you-know-who_.” Ivy was pretty satisfied with her story, and she wished she could witness when Rowen put this new knowledge to use and tried to tell someone the story of _Rumple-you-know-who-stiltskin_ and his chamber of secrets, but judging by the acid in her mother’s eyes, she would enlighten him later.

“There is something else we need to tell you”, Mom said, and the tone of her voice was so grave that Ivy forgot her curiosity and her glee, and something inside her dropped, as if the ice-cream in her stomach had formed a clump and frozen her from within.

“Are you ill? Does it have to do with your sickness? Please tell me you’re not going to die.” The clump grew into panic, and she tried to find out if her mother had gone any paler, lost even more weight, tried to determine if the shadows under her eyes were darker than they had been the day before.

“Darling, I’m not ill, I promise. But yes, it has to do with my sickness. I’m throwing up so much because I’m pregnant.”

“With a baby?”

Somehow, her mom seemed unable to answer, opening and closing her mouth, and at last, Rowen answered, his voice so quiet that Ivy almost didn’t hear him. “Well, we hope it’s not a troll…”

It was only then that the full implication of what her parents just told her started to sink in, and the knot of ice in her stomach exploded and flooded her with tiny icicles, pricking her skin from within, frosting over the thorns that still slept inside her. So they were going to have another baby. A sibling, with the same mother and the same father, to make up for what they had missed with her, a baby that was truly theirs, and had them both as real parents. A baby that would grow up to call her mother _Mom_ and Rowen _Dad_. A baby to fill the gap that was too big for Ivy, the gap she would never be able to fill properly, because she was too small and unbending and thorny.

“Well, I hope it’s going to be a troll. I hope you’re going to be satisfied when it’s an ugly, screaming, stinky troll!” Ivy sprang up from her chair, forgetting all about her ice-cream, and stormed out of Rowen’s dining room, stormed out of his hall and out of the entrance door, forgetting even about her shoes, running down the street in socks, and she didn’t even leap over puddles and piles of wet, slippery leaves, and she couldn’t breathe and couldn’t see through the blur of tears and couldn’t hear through the deafening pressure of her rage, her fear. They had betrayed her, had pretended to love her and then taken it all away from her to give it to that other baby, that troll, troll, troll. Ivy gasped when she collided with someone, and struggled and kicked and screamed when strong arms closed around her and a voice spoke to her, seeping only slowly through the brawling inside her.

“Hey, kid, calm down. Who’s trying to kill you, huh?”

It took Ivy some time before she could make out the woman who had captured her and held her, pressing her against her chest, where the zipper of her leather jacket drilled into Ivy’s cheek like a serrated knife. “My parents”, she sobbed, and Sheriff Swan grasped her arms and pushed her a little away and looked at her with one eyebrow raised and sharp eyes, scanning her up and down.

“What did they do?”

“They lied to me. They’re liars and betrayers and I hope they’re getting a troll!”

“Oh man, kid, that sounds serious. Wanna grab some hot cocoa with me and tell me all about it?” The sheriff straightened, one hand on Ivy’s shoulder, and she looked at something behind her. Ivy followed that look, and she detected Rowen and her mother, looking at her with worried eyes from some feet away, and her mother was holding on to Rowen’s arm like a life-line, clawing her fingers into the sleeve of his jacket. She looked back at Sheriff Swan, and shifted a little closer to her, holding on to her jacket, hiding her face in the smooth leather.

“I don’t care, as long as I don’t have to go home ever again.”

“Then hop into the car, and I’m going to check out if I have to arrest your parents, alright?” Sheriff Swan crossed the sidewalk, one hand on her shoulder, and opened the door of the police car parked at the curb. Ivy let her place her in the back of the car, and watched as she turned around to her mother and Rowen, who had come closer. There were tears in her mother’s eyes, and a deep frown on Rowen’s forehead.

“I was just in the vicinity”, Sheriff Swan said, pushing her thumbs into the back pockets of her jeans. “I guess you should give her some time to cool off, she seems pretty shocked. What happened?”

Ivy couldn’t hear her mother’s whispered answer, but she saw how she placed a hand on her belly, and bitterness rolled up inside her.

“That’s a pretty intense reaction. Are you ok with me taking her for a cocoa?”

Ivy saw how Rowen nodded, pale, pressing his lips into a thin line, and he extended a pair of shoes towards Sheriff Swan. The sheriff tipped a hand to her forehead as a greeting and took the shoes, and Ivy ignored Rowen and her mother as she climbed into the car and started it, rolling slowly past them.

“So, kid, is hot cocoa after your liking, or would you rather like some pizza?” Sheriff Swan looked over her shoulder, back at Ivy, with a smile that didn’t show her teeth.

“Pizza.” Hot cocoa made her think of her mom, and she didn’t like that right now, not now that her mom was growing another baby. Ivy imagined a tiny girl with curls like her own and sharp teeth like a troll, and eyes in the shade of lilacs, like those dangerous creatures out of one of her books, impish and always planning something wicked, hiding her badness behind a smile that made her parents melt and oblivious to her true nature.

Sheriff Swan told her to wait in the car when she parked in front of Storybrooke’s only pizzeria, and she went inside and returned with a large pizza box. “I got something of everything, since I didn’t know what you wanted, hope that’s ok”, she said, placing the box on the passenger’s seat. Ivy just nodded. The sheriff took her home with her, into a friendly flat that she shared with Miss Blanchard, Ivy’s teacher, of all people. And Miss Blanchard even sat down with them at the shabby table and shared pizza with them, and both women talked and laughed and acted as if it was completely normal to have Ivy over. It was almost nice, but there was too much salami on the pizza and it tasted of death and pepper.

“So, your mom’s going to have another baby, huh? I always wanted a real sibling, someone to hang out with, someone who belonged to me, someone with whom I could stick together… In foster homes, kids come and go and you never know how long someone’s going to be there.” Sheriff Swan took the last slice of pizza and stuffed it into her mouth, and she talked with her mouth full.

“But they said they didn’t want another kid. They promised. And now they’re going to have one that they will love from the start, and Rowen will like it better than he will ever like me.”

“Well, that’s a pile of rubbish if I ever heard one. Your parents love you, and they’re worried sick about you. And trust me when I tell you that I’ve never seen Mr. Gold as lovesick as I’ve seen him with you. I even doubted he’s human before you came along and turned him into a puppy.” Sheriff Swan grinned, and Miss Blanchard giggled.

“True. He was the scariest of them all, and you better didn’t cross his path. And now he’s a total softie and always talks about you when he collects the rent or someone comes into the pawnshop.”

It almost sounded as if they were making fun of Rowen, and Ivy didn’t like it. She straightened, and jutted out her chin. “I bet he can still be evil. He’s not a puppy.”

Miss Blanchard and Sheriff Swan stopped smiling, and nodded.

“Oh, absolutely. I wouldn’t want to cross him now either. Especially when it concerns you. I’m sure he would do anything to protect you from harm. He’s just like I always imagined a father to be.” Sheriff Swan looked sad now, and Ivy softened a bit.

“He’s my real father, you know”, she explained, and both women nodded again.

“So, when he’s your real father, why do you think he would love a sibling more? Most parents can love all their kids equally.” Sheriff Swan leant forward and picked the last crumbs out of the pizza box. Ivy watched her pick up crumb after crumb, and lick them from her finger.

“But not all”, she said, and looked at the corpse of a housefly amongst the crumbs, wondering if it had already been there, under the pizza, or just now dropped dead to find its last resting place amongst crumbs and threads of cheese.

“Not all, no. But I think your mother and your father love you so much that it’s not possible for them to love someone else more. Equally, yes, but not more.” The sheriff picked up a crumb close to the fly and licked it off her finger.

“But the troll will call Rowen Dad, and then he will love it more.”

“You could call him Dad, too. After all, you said he’s your real father.” Another crumb found its way into the sheriff’s mouth, and Ivy watched fascinated as she picked up the next one. One more, and the corpse of the fly would suffer the same fate as the other crumbs. Ivy wondered if it was illegal for sheriffs to eat corpses, even those of flies.

“He never said I could. Maybe he doesn’t want me to call him Dad.”

“Oh, believe me, he would be over the moon if you’d call him that. You would do all of Storybrooke a huge favor.” The last crumb. Ivy tilted her head and watched as Sheriff Swan’s finger hovered above the fly-corpse, aiming for that last crumb to pick it up. Watched, somehow too stunned to open her mouth and let out her voice, as the sheriff picked up the little black crumb, brought her finger back to her mouth and licked it off her fingertip. And chewed. “The crispy ones are the best”, she said. Ivy wondered if she referred to crumbs or flies.

“And who knows, you could like the baby, too”, Miss Blanchard mused, and Ivy grimaced. But then, if the sheriff could eat flies, maybe she could like a troll.

“I would like to go home now”, she said, and both women smiled.

When Sheriff Swan brought her up the porch to Rowen’s house, the door flew open and her mom stormed out and tackled her, and Ivy couldn’t make out a single word of what she was babbling.

“Mom, your hair is in my mouth. That’s gross.”

Her mother let go of her, wiping tears from her face, and Rowen stepped forward, gently nudging Mom out of the way. “You scared us, young lady”, he said, with a stern face, and Ivy shrank a little. But when he went down on one knee, with a groan, and pulled her into his arms, the weight slipped off her stomach, and she almost sobbed with relief. He patted the back of her head, and held her, pressing her face to his shoulder, and Ivy inhaled some of his hair.

“Dad, your hair is in my mouth. That’s gross.”

Rowen froze, went as still as a stone, but just like the ripples on a lake when a rock was thrown in, something rippled through him, and she heard a stifled sound, as if he was trying to swallow a sob and it still escaped him, shaking his frame and causing him to smother her in his arms.

“Dad, I can’t breathe”, she complained, and he let finally go of her.

“I’m sorry, sweetie. I’m just so glad that you’re back. We missed you terribly.”

“I was hardly gone.”

He smiled at her, and Ivy looked away from his watery eyes and at her mom, standing behind him and pressing a hand to her mouth. “When are we going to move in?”, she asked, and decided to wait until the troll was there before she really hated it. Maybe it would be nice to have a troll. Maybe even better than having a ferret, or a puppy. Though, nothing was as good as having a puppy.


	26. Chapter 26

Rowen made sure that she didn’t lift a finger when they moved their households together, and Belle couldn’t help to feel warm and fuzzy whenever she looked at him. Of course, she pretended to be annoyed by his overprotectiveness, and she insisted on supervising the movers he hired (and she suspected him of instructing them to act as if she really was in control), watching closely as they packed her (admittedly tiny) household up and unpacked again at Rowen’s. Ivy flitted about the place, bustling between movers built like sequoias, and more than once Belle’s heart stopped dead, only to resume pounding like a jackhammer. Rowen patted her back and provided her with tea, and he was so sweet that Belle finally accepted that he really had changed… maybe not completely, since it was unheard of that someone grew a second brain and started using it, but the important bits and parts were undeniably different. Or, and that could just as well be it, Belle’s way of looking at him had changed.

When they had finally settled in, and even the morning sickness (more like all-day-sickness, really) subsided, Belle dared to believe that maybe they were becoming a real family at last, and maybe (and she placed a hand on her belly and felt after that flutter that felt like butterfly wings inside her, and which she knew to be the movements of their baby), they would soon be a family of four. She was afraid to hope, but Rowen’s optimism was contagious, and when they rested on the couch, wrapped around each other, and he placed a hand on her belly and whispered nonsense into her ear, it was hard not to let herself be carried away by that. Ivy watched her belly as if she expected it to swell and burst any moment, but when Belle took up knitting to make baby caps and blankets for the baby, Ivy sat with her and asked her how to knit, so she could knit a scarf for the troll. She never called the baby anything but ‘the troll’. Rowen, however, called their baby little Bean.

“It looks like a bean”, he said, after looking at the ultrasound picture for the first time. “And also, you’re a little flatulencier than usual. Every bean makes a sound.”

“Flatulencier isn’t even a word.”

“It’s not? Are you sure?” He smiled, rubbing her belly, and Belle crinkled her nose.

“There is no word such as flatulency.”

“Of course there is.”

“But it isn’t an adjective. You can’t form the comparative of _flatulency_.”

“Well, I just did. How about that.”  

Belle rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t even make sense. You can’t be _flatulencier_. You can’t even be flatulency.”

“My nose would disagree, but I think it might be more beneficial for my health if I dropped the topic.”  

“Damn right.” Belle was more comfortable talking about flatulencies than about the off-chance that Bean might become a baby one day and need a real name. It was already daring to name it now, when it was not even a real baby yet. It could be gone before it would ever need a name. She settled back against Rowen’s chest and pretended to read. They spent most evenings like that, huddled up on the couch after bringing Ivy to bed, and Belle hoped it would always be like that. Even when their little bean would never grow out to be baby. Rowen hummed into her hair, sending little shivers down her spine, and he brushed her hair aside to press a kiss to her neck.

“What would be a good place for a tattoo for me?”, he asked, and Belle let the book sink down onto her lap again.

“You want a tattoo?”

“I do. Does that come as a surprise?”

Belle turned a little to look at him. He looked sincere. “I never thought about it. What kind of tattoo?”

“A combination of three things. Flowers, incidentally.” He took her hand and painted circles into her palm. “A love vine blossom like the one above your heart. A snail vine, which Thomas Jefferson called ‘the most beautiful bean in the world’. And ivy to bind it all.”

“A snail vine?” Belle’s voice shook, and she quickly turned her face away. “You don’t even know if it will live.”

“Yes. But even if it doesn’t, it was here and touched our lives, and I love it. So, what would be a good place?”

Belle took his hand that rested on her belly and opened his cuff links to roll his sleeve up and trace the soft inside of his arm with her fingertips. “Ivy and I ‘do vines’ from time to time. We take a pen and draw ivy around our wrists, from hers to mine. I think here, on the inside of your arm, above your wrist, that would be a good place.”

Rowen looked at his arm, as if he tried to picture a tattoo there, and Belle traced the faint blue veins shining through his skin. “You are in my heart and in my veins, you know that, right?”, he whispered, and Belle swallowed. Nodded.

“It will be beautiful”, she said, and Rowen cradled her face to kiss the tears from her lashes. She didn’t even know why there were tears at all, and she was glad that Rowen didn’t ask.

She hoped he would decide to wait with his tattoo until the bean was a baby, but he decided against waiting. “My feelings won’t change”, he said, and so Belle and Ivy went with him to a tattoo studio and held his hand while the tattoo artist inked love vine and snail vine and ivy on the inside of his right forearm. It came out beautifully, and after the last session, Belle cried again (she cried a lot, and preferred to credit it to the pregnancy). Ivy had watched her father grind his teeth, with a curiosity in her eyes that was only the tiniest bit disconcerting, and she beamed at the finished tattoo.

“It’s beautiful, Dad! Did it hurt?”

“Not at all.” Rowen was still a little pale from that last session, and Ivy raised a brow, just like Rowen sometimes did. So he added: “Maybe a bit.”

Belle smiled, and ran her fingers through Ivy’s curls. She wondered if the bean, if it ever became a baby, would have curls just as unruly as Ivy had. Or maybe it would have hair as soft and straight as Rowen’s. And eyes like she had. But maybe it would never open its eyes, and she would never find out if its hair would be curly or straight.

Rowen convinced her to stop working in her father’s flower shop, and Belle protested only half-heartedly. She was so tired all the time, and hard work and stress were probably not the best thing if she wanted to keep the baby. But just spending her days at home, doing nothing but a little household (though so much bigger now) and reading wasn’t really fulfilling either, and she spent the mornings with Rowen in the pawn shop and the afternoons with Ivy, until her daughter started to put up signs to the door of her new room, and her chamber of secrets, that told her that adults had to stay out. So Belle started to binge watch telenovelas and wild life documentaries. Her belly grew slightly bigger, a soft swell that was hardly noticeable, and the movements of her baby grew stronger, and Belle found herself wondering more and more often about its hair and its eye color, and if it really would be a little troll or maybe a little princess with fairy wings and stars in her eyes.

Ivy was with Grace when Belle watched the documentary about hippos, and watched how a baby hippo was born, watched it grow and peruse the waters with its mother, until one day, a bull came by and killed it. Just like that. Belle was still curled up on the couch, wrapped in a white fleece blanket, her eyes swollen shut from crying for hours, when Jefferson brought Ivy home. Rowen was still at the pawn shop, luckily, so he didn’t see the disaster that was her face, and Jefferson was shocked enough for her taste. Belle was miserable.

“God, Mom, what is it this time?” Ivy sounded a little bored, and Belle couldn’t blame her. After a few weeks, she had stopped being shocked by her mother’s tears.

“The baby hippo was killed by a hippo bull”, Belle choked out, ignoring how Jefferson’s eyes went wide and he bit his lip to stifle his laughter.

“No wonder you are so pale. That’s a tragedy.” He lifted a brow and winked, and Belle swayed and had to grab the banister of the stairs to remain on her feet.

“Why did it kill it?”, Ivy asked, wandering into the living room after kicking her shoes away, and Belle had to raise her voice to reach her daughter.

“It just did. It didn’t have a reason, it was just plain evil. I was so shocked.”

“Is that why you spilled coffee on the couch?”

Belle had no idea what Ivy was talking about, and she swayed again. “Coffee?”, she asked, just when Jefferson grabbed her arm to steady her. Ivy came back into the hall, holding up the fleece blanket that Belle had wrapped around herself earlier. In the middle of the shining, soft white was a dark stain.

“I didn’t have coffee”, Belle whispered, just when Ivy looked closer at the stain, and her eyes went wide with horror. She dropped the blanket, and stared at Belle, and time seemed to slow down, to freeze, until it stood still, and the only life Belle felt was the soft throb between her legs, the wetness slowly seeping into her consciousness, the faint pull inside her belly, like strings that syncopated in the same rhythm that her blood pulsed.

Jefferson caught her before she slipped to the ground, but in the sudden panic that grabbed her like a fist, she couldn’t make out what he was saying. He carried her to the couch, and Ivy was at her side and held her hand, and Belle focused on those small hands, on Ivy’s dark eyes, while Jefferson’s voice blurred into a senseless hum.

“Alright, Belle, don’t panic. I called an ambulance, and Rowen will meet us in the hospital. Don’t panic, ok?”

“I’m not panicking”, she lied, mostly to calm down Ivy, who was shaking at her side, white as a sheet.

“Don’t die, Mom, please don’t die”, she whispered, and Belle patted her hand.

“I don’t think I’m going to die.” No. She would live, would have to live with the loss of another child, a bean that had almost grown out to be a baby. She gasped when she felt a sting inside her belly. Jefferson grabbed her shoulder, as if he could keep the catastrophe from happening if he only held her tight enough. Belle patted his hand, annoyed that she had to be the one to calm him down. If Rowen was there, he would make sure she didn’t panic. He would give her the strength she needed.

When the ambulance arrived, she was (at least to the outside) calm and composed, grinding her teeth to steel herself for the overwhelming grief and pain she knew to come. They told her to stay calm, not to panic, to breathe (“I am breathing, or am I so blue that you think I stopped with it?”), they told her they would take care of her. All she wanted was Rowen to be there. She had wanted to spare him from this, had _known_ it would come like this, but now that it actually happened, she needed him to be there with her.

He stormed into the exam room just when Dr. Whale was diving beneath the cloth that should protect her modesty, getting an eye-full of her vulnerable parts spread out for examination – not that he hadn’t seen them before, but Belle tried to concentrate on the offence it gave him that Dr. Whale was so close to her lady parts without showing any sign of appreciation at their beauty (a fact she was eternally grateful for), and as silly as that was, it kept her away from the vortex of desperation and panic gurgling beneath her breastbone. When he recovered, Rowen rushed to her side and took her hand, and pressed kisses to her knuckles.

“Are you alright?” He was hoarse, croaking, and attempting a smile that failed miserably.

“That’s a silly question, darling. Of course I’m not alright. I’m so sorry…” Maybe that was the worst of all. He had been so happy, had already loved this bean so much, and she wasn’t able to give him this. She would forever be the one to take things away from him. “I am so sorry.”

“Shhh, don’t be ridiculous. You don’t need to be sorry.”

Dr. Whale used this moment to emerge from beneath the cloth. “Mr. Gold’s right. So far, things are looking good. Smaller bleedings happen sometimes, and at this point of the pregnancy it probably isn’t a placenta praevia…”

“In that case, a vaginal examination would be a pretty reckless thing to do, wouldn’t it, Doctor?” Rowen’s voice had that feral tone that was able to give anyone the creeps, and Belle was too fascinated by Dr. Whale paling and starting to sweat to register Rowen’s words.

“Yeah, well, as I said, at this point…”

Rowen didn’t let him finish. “So, what is it if it’s not that?”

“As I said, smaller bleedings happen sometimes, and either the fetus stays or it doesn’t. Mrs. Gaston should rest for a few weeks, lie down, and then we’ll see. But right now, there’s no reason to panic.”

“But that was so much blood…” Belle thought of the stain on her fleece blanket and how horrible it had looked, so dark between all that white.

“It looked more than it actually was, really. Don’t worry, go home and rest.” Dr. Whale left them a minute, so Belle could change back from the hospital gown into a shirt and sweatpants stained with blood, since no one had thought about bringing a change of clothes for her. She held the pants in her hands, stared at the stain, and couldn’t bring herself to put them on again.

“Rowen? Could you get me some pants?” She hated how small she sounded. Rowen didn’t question her request, though, and when he brought her a pair of blue scrubs, she was overwhelmed by her love for him, and she was helpless against the tears welling up in her eyes.

“Hey, sweetheart, everything’s ok. I’m here for you. Let me hold you.” Rowen pulled her into his arms, petted her hair, and Belle sniffled and pressed her face to his throat.

“Will you marry me, Rowen?”

His arms stilled, and maybe his heart stopped for a moment, and Belle held her breath. He had never really asked her, just insinuated the possibility, and maybe he didn’t really want to marry her. Maybe she just should have remained silent.

“Do you really mean that?”, he asked, and now his voice was hardly more than a scratch in his throat.

“I do. I hate to be Mrs. Gaston. And I don’t want Bean to be born as Mrs. Gaston’s bean.”

“You could just change your name back to French.”

“I could. But I don’t want to be Belle French either. I want to be Mrs. Gold. If you’ll have me.”

“Hah. As if I would ever let you go again.”

They married the following week in their living room, decorated with so many of Ivy’s paper flowers that the floor was covered with them, and Belle wore a crown of small paper flowers and a bouquet of white dahlias, with honeysuckle in between (a real challenge to get at this time of the year). Archie Hopper officiated their wedding, small and plain, with no one but Ivy and her father at their side, and after the wedding, Belle spent the rest of the day resting against Rowen on the couch, watching _The Beauty and the Beast_ with Ivy and listening to Rowen’s heartbeat.

“What’s the meaning of those?”, he asked, pointing to her bouquet, and Belle smiled.

“Dahlias say that I’m forever Thine. And honeysuckle represents the bond of love.”

“I like the sound of that”, he murmured, and Ivy, huddled up in her own armchair, grunted.

“You two are disgusting.”

“Well, when two people are in love, they like to show it”, Rowen said, and Ivy rolled her eyes.

“I’m never going to fall in love, then. At least I’m not alone anymore when the troll is here. Anything is better than watching you snog all over the place.”

There was a flutter of hummingbird wings inside her belly, and Belle put a hand against it and smiled. Maybe, if she allowed herself to believe in it, the bean would really grow into a troll. After all, one thing she had learned since coming back to Storybrooke was that there was always hope, even in the most unlikely places. So why not believe in snail vines and trolls?  

 

The End


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